


Commander Spectre

by Elchen_Warmage



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect Trilogy, Warframe
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, F/M, The Tenno are badass killing machines, Warframe Spoilers, What if a Tenno was in Mass Effect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elchen_Warmage/pseuds/Elchen_Warmage
Summary: Shepherd and her squad moved through the bloodied halls. Cerebus troops lay everywhere in various states of carnage. They had been sliced apart, ripped to shreds and burnt with acid. Whatever had come through the base was death incarnate."Or I explore what would happen if a Tenno ended up in mass effect."Warning: If you have played Warframe then you know things can get pretty gory.





	1. Gore on the Walls

Shepard and her squad moved through Cerberus base. EDI had intercepted a distress call coming from the place. They would have missed the call had they not been orbiting the planet. The distress call had been a single short burst before being cut off entirely.

Now, 30 minutes later, they were walking through halls of carnage. Cerberus corpses littered the hallways. One soldier before them was missing the upper portion of his body. “Vaporized,” Garrus said.   
“It looks that way,” Shepard agreed. Other corpses had slashes across their entire bodies cutting straight through their armour. “Some kind of animals? Varren maybe?”   
“Animal yes, but I don’t think a varren could do that to armour. And varren certainly don’t remove heads,” Garrus added, pointing to a headless trooper with his head on the other side of the hall.

The oddest part was that virtually every trooper had acid marks on their armour. Almost every exposed surface was pocked with micro holes. In other places, the acid had chewed through the armour leaving gaping wounds. The exposed flesh was sickly.

“EDI, what can you tell me about these corpses.”   
“The acid seems to be a particularly potent variety as can be seen. I would suggest avoiding the bodies in case there is still residual acid.”   
“And is there any particular reason their flesh looks like that?” Shepard asked. “That isn’t what I remember acid burns looking like.”   
“You are correct. Brief analysis seems to indicate that they have a toxin their system. They most likely died within seconds of it entering their system.”

“Shepard, I don’t like this,” Liara said from her side. “Whoever came through here has some pretty powerful weapons. I’ll have to look into it, but I haven’t heard of anyone employing chemical warfare in such a manner.”   
“Maybe it was a Cerberus experiment gone wrong,” Garrus said. “It wouldn’t be the first time they dabbled with things beyond their control.”   
“I don’t know, Garrus. Keep your eyes open and gun up.” Shepard cautioned. “Whatever did this is likely still here and I don’t feel like getting caught unawares.”

Shepard did a quick sweep of the corridor to the right. A small knot formed in her stomach. She had seen what the geth had done to the colonists, but this was on a whole different scale. Whatever had come through the base dealt death in a way that was on par with the Collector harvesting of humans. A small part of her wanted to admit that the thought terrified her. The small part was crushed beneath her Commander persona, she couldn’t afford to be afraid.

They continued onward through corridor after corridor of the same carnage. They came across an Atlas mech in an open hall. The knee joints had been corroded through, toppling the mech backwards. The cabin glass was missing, except for molten lumps in the corners. The pilot’s upper torso was ripped off and lay next to the mech. Cerberus troops lay in a spread out pattern. Several more mechs lay destroyed beyond the first one.

“Commander,” EDI said over the comms, “the facility’s main control center is just ahead of you. Considering the path of destruction, it seems that it may have been the assailant’s destination.” Shepard looked toward the heavy steel doors that stood wide open. Her eyes crossed the field of dismembered Cerberus troopers. A weapon had cut through them all with seemingly ease if the smooth melted edges were any indication. She raised her Revenant rifle and picked her way through the body parts.

Before they got to the door, a figure stepped out. They figure was armoured. With what, she didn’t know. The material did not match any she had seen before. The armour’s features were heavily stylized after asari or human female form. They stood on a pair of heels that would have looked perfectly at place in a high society gala. A thin waist flared out into a large bust. A high fur looking collar tapered off into a cape. The helmet looked like a flower that opened out backwards. The armour was tinted black and grey with yellow accents.

The figure had made no motion to attack them yet. Instead, they rolled their shoulders stood in the door with a bored air. Shepard weighed up in her mind whether she should shoot or not. On either side of here, Garrus and Liara waited for her orders. On the one hand, the figure was extremely dangerous and indiscriminate with how they killed things. On the other hand, they had not attacked yet and the large energy weapon that they wielded gave Shepard reason to be cautious. She was fairly certain that that weapon was the cause of the numerous Cerberus troopers with vaporized limbs they had come across.

“Well, are you going to shoot or not? I don’t have all day,” the figure said. Their voice was smooth and monotone, no emotion.   
Shepard kept her gun up and pointed at them, but decided to hold off shooting for the time being.

“Who are you?” Shepard asked.   
“An odd demand coming from those who not so long ago decided they didn’t need to know.”   
“I am Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. I am not with these Cerberus bastards,” she couldn’t keep the venom from her voice.

“Then it seems Ordis was correct when he suspected you were a different faction. At first I was certain you were reinforcements responding to the distress call.”   
“Cerberus is our enemy. The distress call revealed their base to us and we came to investigate.”

The figure stood still and looked at them, at least Shepard assumed they were looking at them because she couldn’t see any indicators of eyes. A movement to her left drew her attention. She turned her head slightly so that she could see it out of the side of her eyes. A black varren sized animal stalked among the corpses, occasionally scratching at something. Six thin tails waved behind it and bounced in the air every time it jumped. Yellow patches were scattered across its back.

“Liara, what is that thing?” Shepard hissed to her left.   
“I don’t know, Shepard. I have never seen anything like either of them before. And neither did my predecessor or I’m sure he would have made an important note about them.”

“Commander Shepard, the first human spectre,” the figure said. “Liara T’Soni, asari, and Garrus Vakarian, turian. This Cerberus group has quite the collection of information concerning you three. They really hate you.”   
“You learnt all that from the mainframe here?”   
“No, I pulled it from the main server before they detected the intrusion and severed the connection. I am the Operator Tesul.”

 “Commander, I have intercepted Cerberus communications,” EDI said over the comms. “A single lone transport was outside the base and has just arrived back.”   
“You may want to get your heads down and get out of the line of fire,” Tesul cut in, stepping forward.

Three fins circled around their wrist. A laser beam shot out and went straight through the head of the first Cerberus trooper to enter the room. Shepard and her squad scattered behind cover as shots rang out through the hall. Tesul made no effort to move out of the line of fire. Shepard noticed the tell-tale blue shimmer of shields.

Tesul took off at a sprint toward the Cerberus troopers. Just before they reached them, they went into a slide and spun in a circle. A bright yellow light followed in an arc. Now Shepard knew what had caused the dismembered troopers. Various limbs went flying around Tesul. And just like that, about ten Cerberus troopers lay dead on the floor.

Shepard looked at Tesul’s weapon. It was a short section with two narrow blades of crackling energy. The short section was attached to a handle via a thin yellow cord.

“Now that the interruption has been dealt with,” Tesul moved back toward them, “I want to ask what a Reaper is. They are mentioned again and again in the database but I can find no proper description of what they are.”   
All three of them looked at Tesul with open mouths. “How can you not have heard about them?” Garrus asked. “They have been causing destruction all across the galaxy.”

“That does not answer my question. What are they?”   
Shepard frown and Garrus. She turned toward Tesul who now stood before her. “The Reapers are world destroying giant machines. They seek to end all advanced organic life.”   
“They sound just like Sentients. Let me guess, some of them are several kilometres big.” Tesul asked.   
Shepard nodded.

“Well, that hardly sounds like a good state of affairs. I am not native to these parts. I was trapped in the Void and when I found an exit, I was over this planet. I set out to find out where I was when my landing craft was attacked. I fear that I may not be anywhere near my home. Your star charts do not match any of mine.”

“Where are you from?”   
“The Origin System.”   
“And what is the Void?” Liara asked.   
“The Void is a place where the laws of physics break down. It may take me some time but I’m sure I will find my home again.”

“And what do you plan to do in the meantime?” Shepard asked.   
“Do what I have always done, fight threats that seek to destroy everything. And once I have found home again I will summon my brothers and sisters to help.”   
“There are more of you?” Garras gawked. To most, it would have sounded like a normal enquiry but Shepard had known him long enough to hear his subvocals.   
“Several thousand of us. Many still sleep but we are slowly finding them and waking them up. When the Sentients return we will ready for them. A new war looms on the horizon and we will be victorious.”

Shepard couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had half expected to be attacked at some point during the conversation. “So what, you’ll help us.”   
“No need to be so incredulous. Despite what the Corpus and Grineer might say, the Tenno do not kill everything we meet. The Myconians, Kavor and many others can testify to our aid.”

Shepard stowed her rifle and held out her hand to Tesul. “Then I am pleased to accept your offer of aid.” Garrus made a choking noise beside her. She scowled at him. “In this time of war we need all the help we can get. We cannot afford to let prejudice blind us to potential allies.”   
Tesul extended their hand and shook Shepard’s, “It is good to have allies. The Tenno learnt long ago that we are stronger when we work together.”

“Do you need a ship?” Shepard asked. “You are welcome to join us on the Normandy.” Garrus wasn’t happy about the turn of events but he trusted Shepard so he kept quiet. His earlier reaction was about as far as he would go in protesting her decision. Not that he wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the newcomer.   
“I have an orbiter. I doubt you have the space to house my weapons and gear.”

“Then I would suggest at least a formal meeting on the Normandy.”   
“I would be amiable to that. However, first I need to salvage some Element Zero from the landing craft outside. I need a mass effect drive for FTL travel.”

The three Normandy crew stared at Tesul. “You don’t have a mass effect drive?” Liara asked breathlessly.   
“No, we do not have Element Zero. We have solar rails that allow us to travel around our system. The Void can be used as a short cut between places, but it is very dangerous.”   
“So you have never left your star system?” The scientist in Liara was intrigued by this news.   
“No, the Sentients came the Tau system. Fortunately, the journey is hard and painful for them or it is likely they would have already attacked us again.”

Liara wanted to ask more questions, Shepard raised her hand and silenced her. “What do you need?”   
“Element Zero is all I need. I have already tasked Ordis with substituting materials I already have. Your mass relays seem very similar to our solar rails. A day or two and I shall be able to join you. Ordis will contact your cephalon to arrange a meeting and set up communications between us. I am alone out here am I am loathe to travel blind in an unknown world.”   
“Then I look forward to meeting you again, Tesul.”   
Tesul bowed again, “Sho-lah surah.”

Shepard and her crew watched as Tesul walked down the hall toward the landing pads. “EDI, tell Cortez to pick us up somewhere else. I have had enough of scary super killers and would rather avoid Tesul until necessary.”

 


	2. New Allies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to the first few readers, I rewrote the first chapter on Tuesday. I got my brothers to help proofread so hopefully fewer errors.

Shepard groaned internally. The day did just not want to end. She had started by filing a mission report for the trip to the slaughtered Cerberus facility. She had barely sent it before Hackett was calling her on the QEC. What followed was something that on the surface sounded like congratulations on first contact with a new alien race. She couldn’t be sure, but she was fairly certain that the hidden message was a warning to keep it away from the Normandy. Hackett was an okay admiral, but could he just for once ignore the others and give her some peace.

Now she was being chewed out by Primarch Victus, something about not following protocol. She raised her hand to interrupt him. “With all due respect, Primarch, your argument makes no sense. Yes, we did come across extremely dangerous alien of unknown origin. But they are also prepared to help us. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I’m currently negotiating an alliance with a race of dangerous aliens for you.”

Victus went rigid and stared at Shepard, then turned around and left the conference room. She wasn’t sad to see him leave. She was going to have a word with Garrus later on. He said Victus wasn’t a stickler for rules.

Wrex chuckled from his side of the table. “You’d make a fine krogan, Shepard.”  
She sighed in frustration. She shouldn’t have lost her cool like that. She hoped it wouldn’t come to bite her ass later when she needed something from the primarch.

“And what do you think about this whole situation, Wrex?”  
Wrex chuckled again, “Why are you asking me? I’m not your superior and unlike our fine turian friend I understand what that means.”

Wrex was an old friend and Shepard felt comfortable dropping her Commander façade around him. “It just feels like everyone has an opinion on what happened down there. They might not say it, but I can see it in their eyes and posture. What do they want from me? I brokered peace with an alien who singlehandedly wiped out an entire base. No offence, Wrex, but a krogan rampage is mild compared to what that thing did.”

Wrex burst out laughing. “Why would I be offended? We’re fighting giant machines that make our ships look like toys. If this thing turns on us it will be a fight worthy of the krogan.”  
Shepard shook her head, krogan bravado never changed. “As much as I appreciate the krogan and their strength, I don’t like our odds if we had to fight these Tenno right now.”

“You get some rest, Shepard. I’ll keep Victus busy if he tries to talk to you.”  
“Thanks, Wrex. I’m glad I didn’t have to shoot you on Virmire.” She beamed at the krogan.  
He returned her smile with a chuckle, “So am I.”

* * *

 

“Shepard.” Shepard stirred in her sleep but didn’t wake up. “Shepard.” The second time was louder and more insistent. Shepard groaned and sat. The left side of her face was numb. She ran a hand along it and felt the impression of a datapad. Great, she had fallen asleep at her desk

“What is it, EDI?”  
“Doctor Chakwas has told you on five separate occasions that you need proper sleep. Sleeping at your desk does not allow for proper sleep and is bad for your spine, even with the Cerberus improvements.”  
“EDI, was that an attempt at humour? The impression on my face says you could have woken me earlier.”  
“It was not, I merely wished to remind you Dr. Chakwas’ warning. I woke to inform you that I have received a transmission from a Cephalon Ordis. It’s related to the alien you met yesterday. Do you wish to hear it?”  
“Yes please, EDI.”  
“As you wish, Shepard.”

 _“Cephalon EDI, Operator Tesul is currently at you orbiter and requests permission to board. **Do not keep them waiting…** your speedy responses would be appreciated.”_  
The aggressive bit in the middle was weird but what really got the sleep from her eyes was the fact that the alien, Tesul, was outside the Normandy. “EDI, why was I not informed of the shuttle's approach?”

She stood up and attempted to straighten her rumpled uniform. “I did not tell you because I did not pick up a shuttle approaching. Even now, I cannot find one on the scanners and a visual sweep of the Normandy’s exterior shows nothing outside.” Shepard frowned, that couldn’t be right. Nothing outside? Either this Ordis was lying or Tesul had cloaking technology that could hide a shuttle from visual.

“EDI, tell Garrus and Liara to get to the cargo bay.” After a brief thought, she added to the command. “Invite Wrex down, I’m sure he’s dying to meet the new alien. Oh and tell Vega to look decent. We don’t want the first thing our guest sees is a sweaty half-naked marine. No matter how many girls fantasize about something like that.”  
“As you wish, Shepard.”

Shepard exited the elevator and was pleased to see that Vega look respectable. Well as respectable one could get wearing a t-shirt. “Hey, Lola, any particular reason EDI is suddenly concerned about my appearance,” he called from his workout corner.  
“She concerned because I am. The alien is here to meet us.” She smiled as his eyes went wide.  
“You mean the scary one that killed that entire base.” He stood straight and tried to look imposing.”

The elevator doors and her teammates stepped out. “EDI, have you picked anything up yet?”  
“Negative, Shepard. There seemed to be something for a fraction of a second but I’m running a diagnostic of my sensors to isolate the fault.”

“Shepard, why are we down here?” Garrus asked. “According to EDI, she can’t detect anything. If there’s nothing out there then we are wasting our time.”  
“Garrus, let’s give our new friend the benefit of doubt. Open the doors, EDI.”

The doors were opened, but nothing appeared outside. She was starting to hope that as scary the implications were the message from Ordis was true. Tesul had better show up or Shepard would be made to look a fool. The elevator opened behind her and a number of people got off. She was pretty sure that even more were observing from the engineering deck.

There was a loud swoosh and something came flying across into the cargo bay toward Shepard. She dived to the side but it stopped before reaching her. The alien, Tesul, was flying in the center of the cargo bay. Two box-like wings extended backward from their waist. The wings detached and flew back out of the cargo bay.

“Swazdo-lah, Commander Shepard. I was expecting a message to say I could board.” Ugh, Shepard mentally kicked herself for forgetting something like that. She noticed that there was a lack of weapons to be seen.  
“No weapons, I see.” She tried to hide that it made her slightly uneasy. Warriors that didn’t carry weapons into unknown situations tended to be confident that they didn’t need them to be deadly. She highly doubted it was out of trust of the Normandy crew.

“Common courtesy. I am a guest aboard your ship.”  
Okay, she definitely had not expected that answer. “That seems awfully trusting of you.”  
“Why would it be. You accepted my help. Your history shows that you keep your word. To break it now would be a betrayal of who you are.” Just how much data had the alien pulled from the Cerberus database? Or had it connected to the extranet already?

“We need to discuss how I can best assist you.” Tesul twisted in a circle, observing everyone in the cargo bay. “Quite the gathering of people here.” They bowed down low before everyone. “Swazdo-lah. I am the Operator Tesul. I am one of the Tenno, masters of gun and blade.”

“Good to meet you kid,” Wrex rumbled. “It’s nice to have someone who knows how to fight on our side.”  
“Call me a child again and I will make you regret it. I am several thousand years old. I am older than several of your civilizations.” Would it be too painful for Tesul to have some emotion? EDI was a machine and she had more emotion in her voice.

“Wrex, play nice. Sorry, Tesul. He calls everyone kid.”  
“He is forgiven so long as he never does it again. I have read up on the krogan and in many ways they remind of the grineer. Just without the benefit of a continuous assembly line of clones.”  
“Bah,” Wrex spat. “Tank born krogan are not real krogan.”

“As much I would love to discuss the finer points cloning out here in the cargo bay. We really need to plan what the way forward is and that should ideally happen somewhere where the whole ship is not listening in on us.” Hopefully, this exchange between Wrex and Tesul was not indicative of future conflict between the two of them.

Shepard walked to the elevator and Tesul followed. Wrex joined her and the three of them rode the elevator up to the CIC. Once in the conference room, she closed the doors. Victus was already in the room. Tesul went to stand on the opposite side from Shepard. Wrex went to left and Victus stayed where he already was at her right.

“Before we start, Tesul. How did you manage to get to the ship without us detecting you?”  
“I used my Itzel. I’m not surprised you didn’t see anything with its cloak.”  
“Was Itzel those wings you had?”  
“Yes, it’s the fastest of my archwings.” Shepard was certain that Victus was thinking along the same lines as her. Something like the archwings would make infiltration missions a lot easier if they could be so stealthy.

“Sorry, I’m not giving you the plans for an archwing.” Dammit, was she that transparent that an alien could know what she was thinking? “Not that it would do you any good, you would need to be able to channel void energy to power it.” Well, that was a convenient excuse.

“Well, then I guess we will have to settle for your help in fighting the reapers.”  
“Which I will gladly give. Full disclosure, I am not from around here and I’m still trying to find my home world. I have spent the last several hours reading up on numerous facets of galaxy history. And after looking up the history of Commander Shepard I would like to follow you. Whatever your plans are, someone needs to make sure that you succeed.”

Shepard blinked. Had she heard that right? An alien she had barely met was throwing their full support behind her. Javik had only done so because she gave him the opportunity to have revenge on his ancient enemies. “Thank you for your vote of confidence, Tesul.”

Wrex was grinning from ear to ear. Were krogan’s ears in the same place as humans? She would have to ask sometime. Victus remained quiet. Just maybe he had taken her earlier words to heart.

“Will you be able to follow us? When we last met you mentioned that your people. Tenno right?”  
“That is correct.”  
“The Tenno do not have FTL.”

“Wait just a moment. If they don’t have FTL, just how did they end up out here?” Victus spoke up.  
“The turian raises a good point,” Wrex added.  
“Apparently they had an accident of sorts and ended up over this planet. The details are sketchy.”  
“Then I’m sure they can give us proper details now.” Spirits no. She didn’t need them asking questions about the Void. Just thinking about it gave her headaches. And another thing, when had she started using spirits? Garrus was rubbing on her.  
“Commander Shepard has fairly summed up what I told her. I am still trying to properly understand how I ended up here.”

Wrex grunted, “So long as it doesn’t come to bite us in the ass.”  
“It won’t. To answer your question, I am currently modifying my orbiters engines to incorporate a mass effect drive. It should be ready in a few more hours.”  
“Wow, that’s quite the undertaking.”  
“I’m just adding shuttle parts until I have a FTL drive. I will build a proper drive over time using salvaged parts.”

“And where is this orbiter of yours?” She was struck by a thought, was the orbiter stealthy enough to accompany the Normandy. They had done some serious sneaking past Reaper forces the last few weeks.  
“Hiding in plain sight. I have stealth technology similar to your ship.” Well, that was one worry taken care of.

“That seems to be most of the logistical issue handled. To sum it all up: you don’t have FTL but will soon have, you have a stealthed ship and you know how to communicate with us.” Oh yeah. There was that weird bit in the message from Ordis. Who was Ordis? Tesul had said they were alone.

“There was a weird bit in the message from Ordis. What was that about and who is Ordis.”  
“Let me guess, the weird bit was aggressive.” Shepard nodded. “Sorry about that. Ordis has become slightly damaged over the years. He does that sometimes. Just ignore the aggressive parts, he doesn’t mean it.

“As for he is, he’s my ship’s cephalon. He looks after my systems for me. I’ve noticed you have one. You call yours EDI.”  
“An AI? Your ship is run by an AI?”  
“Yes, but we call them cephalons.” Were these cephalons common? She stored that titbit away for a later day.

“I am trying to broker an alliance between the krogan and turians. Their leaders are here before you. Urdnot Wrex and Primach Victus. To achieve this I need to cure the genophage.” Shepard paused. Tesul didn’t ask about the genophage so she carried on. “Mordin is busy finalizing the cure, but we expect resistance from Reaper forces when we get to Tuchanka. We were en route when we intercepted the Cerberus transmission and found you.”

“And I am glad that you came along. I don’t fancy exploring this new world all alone. Some Tenno are solitary but as a whole, we are very social. I shall not delay you any longer. You head toward Tuchanka and I will follow. Sho-lah surah.”

Tesul turned to leave the room. “Wait,” Shepard intercepted them. “I’m curious, are you male or female? You look female but I’m not sure about your people’s physiology.”  
“I am female. You look very similar to what we do.”

Shepard watched as she walked to the elevator and went back down to the cargo bay. “EDI, open the cargo bay doors again for Tesul. And inform Joker that we are to set course for Tuchanka immediately.”  
“Yes, Shepard. I will inform Jeff of our new destination.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swazdo-lah = general greeting used by the Ostrons of Cetus.  
> Sho-lah surah = lit. farewell friend. once again from the Ostrons


	3. Tuchanka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter just kept going on and on. Took some time to write.

Wrex paced restlessly outside the medbay. He had been thrown out by Mordin went the pacing had become too much to bear. Shepard had been called down from her paperwork to handle the disruptive krogan. She was not impressed with the alliance soldier who had relayed the message. From anyone who had been on the Normandy SR1 she would have seen it as a joke but it just sounded racist from anyone else.

“Hey, Wrex.” He just grunted a Shepard in return. “You know, pacing around like that is not going to change anything. Mordin is looking after Eve and everything will go well. We’ll land on Tuchanka and get to the shroud. We’ll cure your people.”  
“I know. I just want everything to go right.”  
“It will. I’ll make sure of it. You’re making the crew nervous.”  
Wrex chuckled, “Good.”  
“Yeah, I thought you might say that. Why don’t you go prep? Joker says we’ll at Tuchanka in an hour.”

“Shepard, there is a call for you on the QEC,” EDI announced over the coms. Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. A thousand credits said it was something krogan related. Everything the last few weeks was krogan related.

She went down to the QEC and accepted the call. It was Dalatrass Linron. Now that was a surprise, she hadn’t thought she would hear anything from her following her departure from the war summit.

“Dalatrass, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” she wore a perfect smile that she had perfected over countless interviews after the events on Elysium. She would rather never have spoken to the dalatrass ever again. Shepard felt she would have a better time negotiating with a vorcha.

“Commander Shepard, we know you have reached Tuchanka and by now Mordin will have suggested using the Shroud to disperse the cure.”  
Oh, the dalatrass knew just how to piss Shepard off. “You spying on us now are you?” she demanded.  
“Hardly, the Shroud is the only viable course of action for you to take.”

The dalatrass paused and then continued. “Commander, you cannot allow you misguided sympathy for the krogan to cloud your judgement. You cannot seriously think that curing the genophage will end in lasting peace.” And there was the reason for the call. The same salarian bullshit the dalatrass had spewed at the war summit.

She had had it with this nonsense. “You cannot condemn an entire race for what might happen.” She let a growl slip into her voice. Right now some turian sobvocals would have been nice in showing how much she did not like what she was hearing.  
“Not what might happen but what will happen. The krogan were uplifted for their violent natures and not the diplomatic skills.”

“Stop wasting my time, Dalatrass and tell me what it is you are after?”  
“Years ago the shroud facility was sabotage to prevent what you are currently planning from happening. Mordin will likely notice this change and repair it. If you prevent this from happening then it will alter the cure’s viability just enough that it fails. No will notice the change.”

“You mean betray the krogan?” Shepard lashed out.  
“They will be none wiser.”  
“If you think that then you are seriously deluded, Dalatrass. I would suggest you tread with care from here on out. Carry on this path and the salarians will find themselves friendless, just like the batarians, when they need help the most.”

The dalatrass tried to continue with her arguments but Shepard ended the call. Yes, she occasionally had doubts over whether lasting peace with the krogans could be achieved. But she was willing to give them a chance.

* * *

 

Shepard, Vega and EDI’s mobile platform geared up in the cargo bay. Cortez ran over the pre-flight check for the Kodiak. “I should be down there with you,” Garrus groused.  
Shepard gave him a peck on his mandible. “I know, Garrus. But I need you up here coordinating the turian forces. I promise next mission I’ll bring you along.”

She picked up her revenant assault rifle up and holstered it on her back, the magnetic clasps keeping it in place. “EDI, any word from Tesul on whether she is joining us or not?”  
“That conversation is still ongoing. I received a number of questions related to Reaper forces. I have yet to receive an answer.”

“We don’t have time to wait. Tell her that we’ll meet at the Hollows.” Shepard and her squad boarded the Kodiak. Mordin, Wrex and Eve followed them. When everyone was aboard, Cortez took off and set course for the Hollows.

Shepard thought about the call from the dalatras. Sorry, Mordin, but salarians were fast taking her least favourite race spot. That spot was currently occupied by batarians but not for much longer if the salarians kept their high and mighty attitude.

Her face took a sour look as she thought about. Eve noticed it, “Something troubling you, Commander?” She thought about whether she should tell Wrex about the call. She wasn’t going to sabotage the cure but did he really need more reasons to hate the salarians? She didn’t get to decide because a call came in from Wrex’s brother Wreav. Reaper forces had arrived at the Hollows. Reapers. Always somewhere you hoped they weren’t yet.

They touched down and Wrex started the fight off by blowing the husk apart that was outside the shuttle. “Keep them off the female. I’ll go see what’s happening to the other clans,” he bellowed. Shepard nodded and motioned for her team to follow her to the Hollows.

Her targeting visor blinked with static for a second. Next to her, EDI stumbled for a few steps. “EDI, What happened?”  
“I detected a mild emp spike coming ahead. It does not match any known Reaper attack.”  
“Yeah, I imagine it screws with their machines,” Vega remarked dryly.

They entered the Hollows to find it crawling with husks. A cluster of husks rose into the air and were crushed. Shepard was confused, since when did krogan have that kind of biotic power. Wrex was biotic but he was a serious oddity among krogan.

Vega and EDI engaged husks that came at them from the left. Shepard’s visor broke up in static again. She assumed EDI was also negatively affected but she never got a chance to check because her attention was caught by the nearest husk falling to the ground. Something flew past her and into some nearby husks. Body parts separated from the husks.

She blinked at the strange mech before her. It was shaped in the proportions of a shapely woman with silver coloured plating. The chest plating had even been shaped to look like a corset. She couldn’t observe any limb joints on the arms. Instead, everything looked to be held together with mass effect fields that glowed a soft orange. It even floated off the ground. Why would someone make a mech held together with mass effect fields? What advantages did it grant?

A husk before the mech was enveloped in a glowing yellow sphere. Nearby husks were dragged closer and sucked into the sphere. Shepard fired at the clustered husks, a nice easy kill. Her shots accelerated even faster upon entering the bubble and pierced through the husks. However, they didn’t leave the bubble on the other side, instead, they ricocheted off the far side of the bubble and went through the husks again. Her shots continued to bounce around and perforate the husks until the orb ended a few seconds later with an explosion.

While Shepard had been focusing on the orb, the mech had leapt across the centre of the Hollows in a single long bound and created more orbs on the far side. Occasionally, there were more EMP pulses. After the third time, Shepard was certain she could see a yellow sphere of light spread out from the mech every time it happened.

They cleared out the last of the husks when Wrex entered, leading a large group of krogans. Mordin gave an update on Eve to say that she was in good condition. And that was where things got nasty. A krogan came over demanding to know why a salarian was with them. The krogan turned out to be the Wreav that had contacted them earlier. Wrex’s bother, but very much unlike Wrex. Bitter words flew between them until one of Wreav’s krogan pulled a shotgun out.

“Enough!” Eve roared from the entrance to the Hollows. The krogan drew silent and gathered to see this female krogan that had spoken out. “You can stay here and let old wounds fester as krogan have always done,” she continued, marching down to the men. “Or you can fight the enemy you were born to destroy and win a new future for our children. I choose to fight. Who will join me?”  
Shepard had to admire her. Eve had certainly stepped in at the right moment. “I will,” she responded. Wrex followed and soon all the krogan were roaring in agreement.

They headed to the tomkah and the mech followed. Wrex eyed it with suspicion. “You sent you Shepard asked. The mech had helped but she worried that some sinister third party had sent it.  
“Apologies, Commander, I forgot to mention I changed warframes.”  
“Tesul?” she asked, hearing the monotone voice come from the mech.  
“Yes. I will explain along the way. I believe we have a Reaper to kill.”

They boarded the tomkahs and the convoy departed the Hollows for the Shroud. “So why do you look so different?” Shepard asked, shortly after they left.  
“I changed warframes, this one is better suited to fight robotic enemies.”  
“What’s a warframe?”  
“The best way to describe it would be to compare it to EDI. She is still aboard the Normandy yet is down here helping you.”  
Okay that made sense, a remotely controlled combat platform. No need to risk your life. “So you are still on your orbiter?”  
“Yes.”

Silently they continued onward. Shepard watched her companions. The two krogan revealed nothing, Mordin was busy working on something on his omnitool, EDI didn’t show emotion and Vega looked worried.

“Commander, you looked worried earlier on the shuttle,” Eve said. “Is something bothering you?”  
Shepard thought about her dilemma again and decided it was better to tell them. Mordin would most likely discover the sabotage but it would be better if he had prior warning and could fix it sooner. And Wrex deserved to know.

“The salarian dalatrass called and tried to convince me to sabotage the cure.”  
“The slimy pyjack,” Wrex growled. “I hope you told her what she could do with that idea.”  
“Don’t worry, Wrex, I cut her off. But she did reveal that the shroud was sabotaged by the STG in the past.”  
“Suspected something like that. Familiar with STG work. Will be able to compensate for.” Mordin rattled off from his corner.”

She felt better for having told them. Mordin likely would have found the problem on his own, but there was a nagging doubt that maybe he missed it and the cure failed. Now she knew for certain that she had all she could to make the cure succeed. The rest was up to Mordin.

The convoy came to a halt. Shepard and her squad got out to see what the problem was. She ordered Wrex to stay inside keep Eve safe. They walked to the front of the convoy and found that the road was damaged and the convoy could not proceed. “Damn it,” Shepard swore. “Turian wing Artimec, this is Shepard. We’ve been delayed, hold off your attack.”  
“Negative, Commander. Our approach is locked. The Reaper already knows we’re here!”

The turian airships engaged the Reaper. This wasn’t going to end well, they need to get over there and aid them. The reaper struck a ship and it went careening toward them. It struck a tomkah and knocked into the gap in the road. Fearing another crash, Shepard ordered Wrex to take the convoy and go.

The turians, realizing that they weren’t going to get anywhere, fell back. “There is a tunnel to our right,” Tesul commented. “I am busy plotting a route through it to where we can meet up with the convoy again.”  
“Okay, squad. Follow Tesul and we’ll get through.”

The tunnel led down into ancient stone corridors. The architecture was very different from what she had seen of the krogan so far. “Shepard, are you okay?” Wrex called in.  
“Yeah, we’re in some kind of ancient tunnels.” The path split and Tesul went left. The yellow highlights on her warframe glowed, faintly illuminating the area around them.  
“You’re in the City of Ancients, Commander,” Eve informed them. “No maps exist.”  
“There is a map now,” Tesul’s monotone voice came from ahead.

“Wait. Are you listening to our communications?” Vega asked.  
“Yes.”  
“Then why did you not announce your presence at the hollows earlier?” Shepard enquired.  
“I receive but do not transmit.”

They carried on through the tunnels, coming across several krogan murals. “Well, I never thought I’d see krogan art,” Vega commented.  
Shepard chuckled, “You went on Illium when I heard a krogan woo an asari with poetry he wrote. It was awful but at least he tried.”

Once in a while, the tunnels would shake, letting loose a fine shower of dust from the ceiling. She heard what sounded like a distant roar. “Wrex, are you getting any tremors up there?”  
“No, nothing up here other than a tomkah driver trying to compete with you handling of the Mako.”  
“It could something else. It is said that Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws lives in this region.” Eve informed them.

“Well that’s just peachy,” Vega swore. “I didn’t think the krogan would ever name a thresher maw.”  
“It means they don’t think anyone will ever kill it,” Shepard said.  
“Which is all the more reason from you to get out of those tunnels,” Wrex cut in.

“These tunnels kind of remind me of Mars,” Tesul said a little while later. “Less sand here and certainly better built but it has the same feeling as when I’m on Mars.” Okay, Shepard thought, Tesul obviously needed to improve her translation program because there was no way she also had a Mars.

Eventually, they came up out of tunnels into a long courtyard. A ravine ran along the right side. The sound of running water could be heard from the bottom. And she saw something she thought she would never see, actual green growing plants on Tuchanka. “I see green,” she said into the com.  
“You’re looking at hope, the last of it on Tuchankam,” Eve replied. “This was once a world of beauty and given a chance it could be again.”

They moved through the courtyard until they were beset by Reaper forces. Shepard watched in amazement as Tesul leapt upward onto a pillar. Gravity seemed to have little effect on her jump. From atop the pillar she proceeded to envelop the enemy in the glowing yellow orbs, drawing nearby enemies in. Vega was having a fun time shooting an enemy that he physically couldn’t miss. “Hey, Silver, you certainly make the fight interesting.”

While Shepard and her squad moved through the ruins, Tesul followed them from above the ruins. Shepard marvelled at how she effortlessly leapt across wide distances. Sometimes it looked like she was gliding like some type of bird. She was always on the move, moving rapidly from one spot to another. Shepard realized they were actually slowing her down. She had a feeling that given a chance she would easily outpace a tomkah.

Shepard was impressed with the sniper rifle Tesul was using. It had a long square barrel with a small stock. It packed an impressive punch, a few well-placed shots and a charging brute went down. “Bugger had nothing on a juggernaut,” she heard from above her.

Occasionally the ground would shake again and roar could faintly be heard. “Come on people,” Shepard called out. “Kalros is on the move and I want to be out of here.”  
Wrex came in over the coms, “About that, we have some ideas.”  
“Not now Wrex. The commander is busy,” Eve admonished him.  
“What’s going on, Wrex?”  
“Just a crazy idea. I’ll fill you in later.”

They exited the ruins onto a large bridge. Two tomkahs could be seen coming toward them. “Jump on when we pass,” Wrex called out. However, they couldn’t jump because Wrex couldn’t afford to stop on account of the giant thresher maw moving through the ground after them. Shepard marvelled at its size. She had seen some pretty large ones on some remote worlds while exploring in the Mako, but I was hard to imagine a living thing this big.

“Meet you ahead, Shepard. We’ll try shaking her loose.”  
“Kalros territorial instinct confirmed,” Mordin chirped in. Shepard didn’t need to be told that. She’d met enough of them in the past to know that.

They ended up fighting Reaper forces on a raised dais area. Shepard took a brief moment to admire the krogan statues, they had weathered the passing of the years well.

“I think we lost her,” Wrex called them. He pulled up near the dais and they scrambled down to him. Tesul just jumped from a high point straight down toward the tomkah. Shepard involuntarily flinched as she flew past them. To their surprise, she landed at the bottom without injury. There was a loud screech and Kalros came barrelling past them toward Wreav’s tomkah. “Get in!” Wrex roared. With everyone in, the vehicle roared off toward the Shroud. The sounds of Wreav’s tomkah being consumed followed behind them.

 

They climbed out a short distance from the Shroud, out of sight of the Reaper. “I hope someone has a plan B,” Vega said.  
“I could distract it with my archwing,” Tesul said. “But I don’t think it will see me as a threat. It certainly seems to understand what our goal is. The turians would have been nice if they hadn’t had to fall back.”

“Well, Wrex, I hope this plan you mentioned is a good one.”  
“Actually, it’s hers,” he said, pointing at Eve.  
“It’s Kalros. We Summon her to the Reaper.”

“Would that even work?”  
“Already discussed strategy,” Mordin said, not even looking up from his omnitool. “Just need to distract Reaper from tower while cure synthesized, released.”  
“What makes you so sure she’ll come?” Shepard couldn’t exactly see a thresher maw doing what they wanted.

“Legend says she the thresher maw from which all other thresher maws spawned,” Eve elaborated. “This is as much her home as ours.”  
“If Tuchanka has a temper, Kalros is it,” Wrex added. “No one has gone up against her and survived.”  
“If done some crazy things in my time, Wrex, but this might be pushing it.”  
“What? Like going head to head with Sovereign wasn’t? Look, this is our only shot.”

“Okay, but how would we even go about summoning her.”  
“The shroud was built in an ancient arena dedicated to Kalros’s glory. The salarians thought she would scare away intruders. There are two maw hammers there, the largest in existence. If you can activate them, Kalros will come. That should distract the Reaper.”

“Meanwhile, lab nearby. Will finish synthesizing cure.”  
Shepard nodded to Mordin. “All right people, let’s get out this thin alive. We’ll have one hell of a story to tell when this is all over.”

“Wait,” Wrex called out as she turned to leave. “I just want you to know that no matter what happens, you have been a champion to krogan, a friend of Clan Urdnot and a sister to me. To every krogan born after today, the name Shepard will mean hero.” Internally, Shepard shook her head, Wrex liked his speeches.

And with that sweet note from Wrex, they set off to activate the maw hammers. Wrex stayed behind to keep any reaper forces from getting to Mordin and Eve.

The Reaper spotted them and started to fire at them. Shepard had to duck and dive between cover to avoid being shot. Then it suddenly wasn’t aiming at her but firing at something above her. She looked up to see Tesul was flying. She zipped around the place drawing the Reaper’s attention. One second she was on one side of the arena and then she was on the other side. Shepard had a hard time keeping track just where Tesul was. Not that she could afford to look up. Wrex had raised the hammers from his position but she needed to go in and activate them.

“Shit!” Vega swore as they entered the arena proper. Half a dozen or so brutes waited for them.  
A shadow crossed their path and they all dived to the side. One of the Reaper’s claws smashed into the ground where they had been. Shepard was worried that the Reapers was aiming for them.  
“It would appear that the Reaper is having a hard time following Tesul,” Edi commented.

They dodged around the brutes and activated the first hammer. The klaxon call of the Reaper sounded as it fired again. The brute before them was knocked to the side as something crashed down into it. Shepard only enough to realize it was Tesul before a massive Reaper claw came down upon her.

Shit! There went their distraction. Briefly, Shepard wondered just how expensive one of Tesul’s combat platform was. Only briefly, because already the reaper was focusing in on them again. The rocks above them disintegrated from the Reaper’s beam. “Commander, this is Artemac Wing. We’ll try to give it something else to shoot.” Several Turian ship flew overhead and circled around the Reaper.  
“Their timing certainly is fortuitous,” Edi remarked.

With the Reaper off their backs, Shepard and her squad could focus on the brutes and getting to the other maw hammer. “Shepard, you think you could hurry up a bit over there,” Wrex called in.  
“I’m busy, Wrex! I’ve got a Reaper in my way.”  
“I know. You get all the fun.”  
oh shut up, Wrex.”

Two brutes blocked the way forward. EDI sent and overload toward them, stunning them and giving Shepard and Vega time to empty several clips into them. The brutes went down, but their gap was quickly filled in three more. “Keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?” Vega Quipped. “I’ll die of old age before we get to the other hammer.”

There was an explosion from beneath the on Brute and it was knocked sideways. Tesul stepped out of the crater where she had been crushed and sent and emp out, stunning the brutes. Each one was encased in a sphere in rabi succession. Shepard and her squad lost no time in firing at them while running down the stairs and across the arena to the second hammer. The still had to dodge a reaper claw that came down upon them but at least that was the only thing in their way.

Shepard activated the second hammer and there was a deep thrumming boom that went through the ground. “Get back truck,” she ordered them. “I’ll handle the cure.” Vega and EDI headed back, but Tesul just stood next to her.

A large cloud of dust rose in the distance and rapidly drew close, Kalros was on the move. Shepard wasn’t the only one to see her. The Reaper moved to engage the new threat. Kalros came straight out the ground into the Reaper and latched onto it, knocking it sideways. Shepard got her first proper look at the sheer size of Kalros. She was massive. The Reaper may have a giant ancient machine, but Kalros was an even bigger ancient creature that was pissed off. This fight was only going to go one way.

The Reaper knocked her loose and tried to fire on her, but she just dove back under the ground. The Reaper turned, trying to predict where Kalros would emerge. With a loud roar, she emerged from the ground and rose high into the air. She came crashing down onto the Reaper, knocking it flat. She coiled around it, crushing it as she dragged it’s screeching corpse beneath the desolate surface of Tuchanka.

Shepard scrambled around the arena toward the Shroud, thankful that the Reaper had moved away and the fight was not happening above her. As usual, Tesul was high up and way ahead of her. Had her warframe as she called it, really been crushed beneath the Reaper or did it merely look that way to her.

The interior of the Shroud was on fire several explosions flared out from the pillar above them. “Is the cure ready, Mordin?”  
“Yes, loaded for dispersal in two minutes. Procedure traumatic for Eve but not lethal, Maylin’s research invaluable.”  
“She okay?”  
“Heading to safety now.” Shepard was relieved to hear that. Eve would be invaluable in keeping the krogan in line once the war with the Reapers was done. She hated to think that just maybe there might be a repeat of the krogan rebellions. Mordin had the same idea. “Her survival fortunate. Will help stabilize government should Wrex get any ideas.”

A flaming piece of debris came flying down. She dodged it with a, “Shit.”  
“Control room atop shroud, must take elevator up.”  
“What, you’re going up there?” It would be suicide for him to go up.  
“Yes, manual access required to counter STG sabotage. Must ensure cure disperse properly.”  
“Mordin there must be another way, this whole place is coming down.” She pleaded with. She really liked the quirky salarian and didn’t feel like losing him.  
“Remote bypass not possible. No time for other plans.”

Mordin paused. “No, no other option. Not coming back. Suggest you get clear. Explosion likely to be problematic.”  
Shepard was going to protest to Mordin when Tesul laid a hand on her should. “Let him go. I will go with him.” Shepard nodded her assent and watched to two enter the elevator and ascend the tower.

Shepard watched the top of the Shroud. She saw the cure get dispersed and then an explosion where she knew Mordin was. She didn’t see anything else, no sign that he had survived. She approached the entrance to the Shroud and found Tesul’s warframe. This time there was no doubting what she saw. One arm was twenty meters away and the other was nowhere to be seen. The entire surface charred black and the left side of the head looked partially melted.

A triangle shaped craft came through the clouds and hovered overhead. A rectangular panel on the bottom opened and a familiar form dropped out. “What happened?” Shepard asked, running over to her.  
“I did not anticipate an explosion of that magnitude. It even managed to disrupted transference and I’ve never had something like that happened. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t save your friend.”  
Shepard stood straight. “He wouldn’t have had it any other way. Whatever he did, he did with conviction. He wouldn’t have gone up there if he wasn’t fully prepared to die.”

They had done it. The genophage had been cured and with it, an alliance formed between old enemies. Wrex would send troops to Palavan and that would allow the turians to send aid to the Crucible project.

“Commander Shepard,” Tesul said. “I need to go.”  
“You go. Thank you for your help.”  
“No one should fight alone, we are always stronger with others to aid us.”  
“Agreed, now I think I know some people who are going to celebrate and they are going to insist I join in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those waiting for the big tenno reveal, probably next chapter if I don't get derailed.  
> I also started a ficlet collection about Tesul before she ended up in Mass Effect. It's called Daughter of the Void. It's just short pieces about her life that I'll add as inspiration strikes.


	4. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tesul finds where her home is and ends up needing to blow some steam off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of a picture last chapter. The warframe from the last chapter will be first, this chapter's will be at the end. This is a day earlier because I could use the long weekend to write extra.

Tesul sat in her Orbiter lounge and stared out into the blackness of space. She held a pobber floof in her arms and squeezed it tightly. The corners of her eyes glistened but she didn’t cry. “Are you sure?” she asked Ordis again.  
“A hundred per cent Operator. The human Sol System matches our Origin System almost perfectly. The only discernible difference between the two is that the Orokin terraformed the rest of the planets. The Sol System is the Origin System and yet not it.”

She wanted to cry but refused to do so. Only children cried and she had ranted at the Lotus not so long ago that she wasn’t a child. “Maybe we ended up in the past? Given time the humans might terraform their planets.”  
“Sorry Operator, the evidence does not support such a theory. The biggest evidence against such a theory is the existence of Element Zero. The Origin System has none.”

Tesul kept staring out the window. The mandachord played a soft melodic tune that a clanmate had composed. And now, she would never see them again. No more fashion contests or speed runs of a newly redesigned obstacle course. Home was out of reach in another world.

She felt miserable, she had failed to save the commander’s friend and now she had lost her home. She needed a distraction from her misery. She needed something to fight and kill. “Ordis, where’s the nearest thing for me to kill?”  
“The Normandy recently intercepted a message claiming to be from a group Cerberus scientists that have defected.”  
“Sounds like an excuse of a trap. Do you know where they are?”  
“Yes, it is only a few star systems away after using the nearby relay.”  
“Set a course for their location. If it’s a trap, we’ll eliminate them and if they are defectors then we do as we did with the Kavor.”

* * *

 

Everyone on the ship was celebrating curing the genophage and the end of over a thousand years of conflict between the krogan and turians. Shepard and her team members sat to the side and toasted Mordin’s memory. Why did everything good always come with something bad she bitterly thought. She beat Saren and Sovereign and the council still didn’t believe her. She found Garrus again on Omega and then promptly almost lost him again. Just for once she wanted something to according to plan.

“Shepard.”  
she turns to EDI and smiles, “Is there something you wanted to add EDI?”  
“No, I merely wished to inform you that Tesul has left.”  
“Where did she go?” That was odd. Tesul had followed the Normandy since the day they had met. She had indicated that she would be following the Normandy indefinitely.  
“I do not know. Maybe she wanted to do some exploration.”  
“Yeah, maybe. Inform me when she arrives back. Please remind everyone that we are not on shore leave. We have scientists to save in the morning.”

She got up and headed to her room. As much as she hated it, she still had reports to fill out about the events down on Tuchanka. An hour later, her vision started to swim out of focus.

Her door hissed open and Garrus walked in. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and an energy bar in the other. Shepard smiled at him. “EDI mentioned that you might need something,” he said putting the items down on her desk, carefully moving a datapad out of the way.  
“Did she now?”  
“Okay, maybe I just wanted an excuse to come up.”  
Shepard laughed at him. “Why do you need an excuse? You’ve left so much of your stuff up here you might as well move yourself up here and make it permanent.”

Garrus’s mandibles twitched slightly. Shepard sighed. She’d eventually learnt what that twitch meant. She stood up and went to him. “Garrus, I love you.” She ran a hand along his scarred mandible. “I haven’t changed my mind and I’m never going to. How could I when I have someone as amazing as you.”

She took his face in both hands and kissed. He couldn’t return the gesture but he could feel it. “So how about you stop tiptoeing around me and just move your stuff up here and be done with it. I missed for those six months I was on Earth. Call me selfish but I want to enjoy you for as much as I can.”  
“No, Shepard, you’re not selfish. I feel the same way.” Oh knew she that, the two of them had danced around each for months while chasing the collectors. It had taken them ages to admit their feelings to each. Now she that she had him she wasn’t going to lose him, especially not to some fear that she’d change her mind.  
“Then go get your stuff, from now on this is your room as well.”

Reluctantly she let go of him. He wasn’t gone long before he came back with a small box. She hadn’t been kidding, most of his stuff really was in her room. She’d finished off the energy bar and the coffee and was dressed in her sleep clothes, a baggy pair of shorts and a loose t-shirt. Both with the N7 insignia. She was proud to have earned her N7 badge but she drew the line at having it in every facet of her life.

He put the box down on the desk. “Get out of that armour and get over here. I need my bed warmed up,” she purred. Garrus loved it when she spoke like that. Her voice gained an undertone that sounded almost like subvocals. She dragged him to the bed when he had finished stripping the armour off. Turians were hard and bony, hardly cuddly, but she cuddled up to him nonetheless. “I love you, Garrus.”  
“I love you too.”

* * *

 

Dammit, Cerberus didn’t give up did they? Jacob swapped out the heat sink on his rifle and fired at a trooper that tried to sneak around from the side. The message for help had been foolish. Cerberus had responded first and now they were pinned down. If help didn’t come soon they would be overrun. Most people were just scientists, dammit, not soldiers.

He aimed at a spot where he knew a trooper was and waited for him to show himself. Instead, the crate exploded and he saw body parts fly. The crate next to it exploded along with the two troopers behind it. This time he actually saw the weapon fire, it was a massive particle beam that cut through everything in its path. It reminded him of a praetorian’s weapons. No, they had wiped the Collector’s base out.

The Cerberus troopers turned to face the new threat. A lone figure was running at them from the landing pad. A trooper went flying into the air and then the figure was upon him, tearing him to pieces. A loud piercing scream tore through the air. Jacob and the others flinched. He didn’t need to look to know what was going on. Cerberus trooper screams were cut short by the sound bodies being ripped apart.

“Brynn, open the door. We’re coming in.” Jacob looked back towards the Cerberus troopers. They were all engaged with fighting the new enemy. They were quite literally being slaughtered. Bright patches of red indicated where troopers had been.

The door closed behind them, barely blocking the screams that came from outside. “Jacob, what is going on out there.” Dr Brynn Cole came striding toward him.  
Jacob tried to ease his breathing, but the hyperventilating scientist next to him was not helping. He thought he has seen the worst while fighting the Collectors. Whatever was outside made them look humane.

“A new enemy. Cerberus is being slaughtered out there.”  
“Blood, blood everywhere,” the scientist next to him muttered. “We are all going to die.”  
“Don’t talk like that. Dr Webber,” Brynn berated him. “We’ll get through this. The Alliance will get our message and come for us.”  
“No, Brynn. He’s not that wrong. Whoever is out there has a massive particle beam that doesn’t stop.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and continued, “Cerberus is literally being torn apart.”

The screaming from beyond the door was gone. Dr Webber was still muttering to himself. He had promised to protect the ex-Cerberus scientists and now there was a very good chance that he was going to fail.

Jacob’s omnitool binged. Someone was trying to contact him. Curious, he accepted the call. _“This is Cephalon Ordis. The Operator would appreciate if you would open the door and let them through **to kill you all..**._ **”**

* * *

 

The frozen planet reminded Tesul of Venus. No, Venus had life, this place was barren. It was more like Europa. All that was missing was a few crashed Corpus ships. “Operator, the base is currently being attacked by Cerberus and there are several more ships on their way.”  
“So it’s not a trap. I had better go save them then.”

Tesul dropped from her landing craft and landed atop a Cerberus trooper. Her Akstilettos tore his chest apart. It felt satisfying, no matter what world she was in things still died the same. She picked off some troopers with the opticor to draw their attention.

Attention drawn, she leapt off towards them. One rip line later, and she was tearing a trooper apart. That really drew their attention. She unleashed a warcry and it felt good. Her shields dropped almost instantly under gunfire. She could feel the arcane guardians strengthen her skin, the bullets barely dented her skin. Internally she grinned and launched into hysteria.

One, two, three. Her claws dug through armour into flesh. An explosion hit her in the back, knocking her down. She was up and over to the attacker before the explosion had even finished. She stood still and let them shoot her. Fools, she was immortal, they couldn’t harm her. When she had her fill, she finished them off. She was not impressed, thirteen troopers. She’d hoped for a greater challenge.

“Ordis, tell them to open the doors.” Time to rescue the scientists.  
“Yes, Operator.” Tesul started to calm down. She had let her emotions get to her. Rage was never a good substitute for loss. Dive down that hole too far and you ended up like the Stalker. She had witnessed brothers and sisters follow this route when they had first awakened.

She waited for the door to open and groaned when Ordis glitched. There was a bloody good reason she kept him quiet. Now the scientists weren’t going to let her in. She could hack the door but what good would that do her? They would just try to kill her and she didn’t want to kill them. Ordis had mentioned more ships inbound. She would wipe them out and keep the scientist safe until someone came. Just like the Kavor, defending defenceless people.

* * *

 

“Commander,” Samantha Traynor called out. “I have something you should hear.”  
Shepard diverted from her course to cockpit. “What do you have for me, Traynor?”  
“You remember the Cerberus scientists? Well, they sent another message. They’re being assaulted by an unknown enemy. No mention of Cerberus.”  
“That is worrying.”

“Joker, how long before we reach Gellix?” Shepard asked over the comms.  
“A few more hours, Commander.”  
“Good, if we can save these scientists it’ll be boon to the Alliance. I want to be informed when we are thirty minutes out.”

* * *

 

Tesul was tempted to just take her Opticor and take the shuttles out from afar. She had a shot all charged and aimed at the nearest one when she decided against it. She wanted to study these Cerberus, learn their weaknesses. She’d torn through the first base without thinking to scan them.

Three shuttles landed down below. From her vantage point atop the facility, she had a perfect vantage to scan everyone below her. She counted thirty troopers clad in Cerberus black and white. The closest comparison she could find was if you combined a crewman and a lancer. Four enemies with large shields led the front of the back. To the side she noticed movement. A quick peek through her scanner reveal two cloaked enemies.

The cloaked enemies were her first target. She ran along the roof until she was at the closest point to the two cloaked units. She rip lined both toward herself in rapid succession. She let her kavat take care of them, instead, focusing her attention the shield bearers. She dropped to the ground before the doors. A few shots per shield and they were dead, shot straight through the slot in their shields.

Six down, twenty-four to go. No one was shooting at her, instead, they were all hiding behind cover. Fools, she could still hit them through the cover. A cluster of three was torn apart as the opticor beam tore through their cover. Gunfire broke out, aimed at the kavat that had snuck around the side and sundered a troopers armour.

She leapt over the barrier and swung low, removing their legs at the knees. She somersaulted backwards and stabbed two through the faceplate. Methodically she moved through their ranks, decimating them as she went. Earlier’s rage and bloodlust was replaced with the cold, calculated killing that the Tenno often displayed.

Not a single Cerberus trooper turned to run. They would attempt to place cover between them and Tesul, but none ran. Curious, she removed the helmet from one that still had an intact head. The sight repulsed her. She had understood that Cerberus was a human organization, but it wasn’t a human under the helmet. They claimed to be fighting the Reapers but their soldiers looked no different from the husks. Whoever was in charge was as sick as Alad V.

If the people inside had belonged to Cerberus, she wanted to make sure that they weren’t just going to it somewhere else. She needed stealth to observe them silently. She could back to the orbiter and fetch Ivara. No, she could just step out in person and void walk.

She transferred out and void dashed up to the top of the facility again. She left her warframe behind to serve as a distraction. She prowled through the snow look for a vent. Every facility had to have one. Finding nothing, she left the roof and ventured off through the thick snow. She void dashed in a zig-zag pattern until she found a small opening beneath a low overhang.

The opening was small and barely large enough for her to slip in through. The shaft connected a ventilator system but also had several openings directly to the inside of the facility. The vent covers were all firmly secured. However, one at floor level had been damaged, something heavy been dropped against it, bending the slats and weakening them.

She waited for the coast to clear. Once she was confident that there was no one near, she dashed through the cover, smashing the pieces outward with a loud clang. The noise was heard by a number of people that came to investigate. By that time, she was already in the next room busy sifting through a terminal looking for information on the scientist.

* * *

 

Cortez brought the shuttle down low on approach to the Cerberus facility where the defecting scientists were holed up. Edi gave them run down of what they knew. “Reinforcements arrived about an hour ago. More are due to arrive in the next thirty minutes.”  
“Thank you, EDI. Any word on the mysterious guest the last transmission mentioned?”  
“Negative, Shepard. Cerberus is not communicating anything.”

Garrus saw the worried expression on Shepard’s face. “Who do you think it is?”  
“Tesul, I’m fairly confident it’s her.”  
“Why? How would she even know about this place? Did you tell her?”  
“I suspect that she might have been intercepting all transmissions we receive,” EDI said. “I found a number of small viruses on the ship’s communicator system.”  
“Why wasn’t I informed of this,” Shepard said looking at the ceiling of the shuttle.  
“I could discern no purpose to the viruses. They did nothing.”  
“Well clearly they had to do something or they would never have been there.”

Shepard, Garrus and Liara checked their weapons. Shepard had wanted to bring Javik along, but the Prothean was sulking that she hadn’t picked him for the fight against the Reaper on Tuchanka. “Why are you so confident that it’s Tesul?” Garrus asked.

“Several reasons, firstly, the facility has gone dark. Cerberus is dropping troops in and getting nowhere. Secondly, she said she’d try to save Mordin and ended up getting her…” she paused, looking for the right word.  
“Warframe,” EDI provided.  
“Warframe, that’s what she called it. She lost a warframe. In her eyes, she probably failed big time. Remember Omega, Garrus?”  
He nodded. Shepard didn’t elaborate, but he knew what she was implying. “You think she’s trying to prove that she can save people?”  
“Something along those lines.”

The landing pads outside the facility had several transports on them, blocking all possible landing sites. Instead, Cortez had to keep the shuttle near an edge and they had to jump out. Guns at the ready, they proceed down from the landing pad. “No enemies in sight, check,” Garrus said. “Corpses in pieces all over the place, check. Looks like you were right.”

“Up ahead,” Liara motioned. “There’s a figure standing over there.”  
“It doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before. How many warframes does she have?”  
Shepard shrugged, “I don’t know but that’s definitely her. I can see her pet curled up at her feet.”

Slowly they approached the still form. The animal didn’t move except to hiss at them when they got close. Shepard was worried. Tesul wasn’t moving. Shepard had noticed that despite the monotone voice, Tesul’s warframes moved with life. This one just stood there, legs wide and staring out toward the landing pad. At least she thought it might be staring; once again, there were no eyes to be seen.

“I don’t think she’s here. EDI, make contact with Tesul please. I want to know what is going on here. Move on the door, squad.” Outside the door was a dead woman wearing a Cerberus uniform. She was leant up against a box, facing the door.  
“Looks like one of the scientists. Probable died trying to keep Cerberus out,” Liara observed. “I’ll check if she has a comms device. We could use it to talk to whoever is inside.”  
“Good idea. So far EDI has had no response.”

Liara bent down and checked the woman. Fishing something from behind her ear, she gave it to Shepard. “Hello, this is Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. All is clear out here, please open the door so we can talk.”  
silence, and then finally a response. “Commander? It’s Jacob here. Boy am I glad to hear your voice. Cerberus hasn’t left us since they found us yesterday. I’d like to open the door but they’re staying closed until we know for sure that whatever is out there is gone.”

“Jacob, what’s got you so scared?” She knew, but it’s never to wise to reveal that you’re friends with someone dangerous, unless you’re negotiating with a krogan.  
“I don’t know what’s out there but I’ve seen rampaging krogan do less damage.”

Shepard wanted to something in reply but the door opened just then. Clearly, Jacob had not opened them because she was greeted by a row of guns pointed at her. She raised her rifle up and held her hands out. “Easy there, I didn’t open the door. But since it’s open why don’t you let us in.” She really hoped Tesul hadn’t spooked all sense from them.

Jacob lowered his rifle and motioned for them to come in. They were barely inside when the door closed behind them. “Come on, Jacob. Put that gun away. I’m here to help you, or was that transmission that you lot had defected just a lie?”  
Jacob holstered his rifle and motioned for the others follow. “Sorry, but we’re all on edge. That thing out there butchered those Cerberus troopers. When it contacted us, it ordered us to open the door so that it could kill us.”

“Yeah sorry about that.” Everyone turned to look at the speaker. Sitting on a ledge just above them was a girl in her mid-teens. She had dark skin and yellow dreadlocks that faded into black. She wore a heavy-duty form-fitting outfit. Shepard was drawn to her eyes; her irises were white instead of black. “Sorry for the threat to your life. Ordis can glitch occasionally. Nothing serious.”

“Who are you?” Jacob demanded. “How did you get in?” He and the scientists pointed their weapons at the girl.  
“Put the weapons down. If I wanted to kill you, your entrails would have long been on the wall. I’m here to save you from Cerberus.”

The guns did not go down. She sighed, “Commander, you mind telling your friend that I’m friendly.”  
“You know this kid?” Jacob growled. The girl’s face scowled.  
Shepard finally understood what was happening. She stepped between them. “Yes, her name is Tesul. She’s with me.”

Jacob reluctantly lowered the rifle but did not holster it. Shepard focused her attention on Tesul. “What are you doing here?”  
Tesul just shrugged. “I needed to explore the place unseen.” She stood up and vanished. She reappeared before Shepard.

“I have so many questions right now.”  
“I’m sure you do. Later, when we don’t have an audience I’ll try answer them. But I’ll put your mind at ease and tell you that if he’d actually shot me, I wouldn’t have been hurt.”

Shepard’s mind was awash with questions. Tesul had said she looked human, but Shepard had assumed she meant something along the lines of the asari or batarians. She certainly hadn’t expected her to look like a teen. Why risk herself just to sneak around a place unseen? She looked for Tesul, but she had vanished.

“Where did she go?”  
“No idea,” Garrus said. “She’s as sneaky as Kasumi. I can’t believe that our scary alien looks like a human kid.”

“Jacob, we need to get you and your people out of here.” Shepard turned to him.  
“We can’t, our AA guns are down and Cerberus would just shoot our escape shuttles out of the sky.”  
“Not to worry old pal, we’ll get them working,” Garrus reassured him.  
“You’ll need to bring the satellite telemetry back online and then reactivate the AA turrets. It hasn’t been safe for us to go out there and do it.”

“Well, it just got very safe out there. Tesul counts as an entire army.”  
“Really?” Jacob asked.  
“You didn’t see the Cerberus base we found her in,” Garrus said. “She took the entire place out on her own.”

Jacob showed them the exit to the roof. The door was already when they got there. Tesul was leaning against the wall, her warframe standing just outside the door. “I got the satellite synched up. There’s a couple of transports on their way here. You want to fight them or do you want me to shoot them out of the sky.”

“Well, thank you for getting it done so quickly.” Shepard smiled at Tesul and she was greeted with a wide smile in return.  
“So what do you want me to do about the incoming transports.”  
“Can you really destroy them before they land?”  
Tesul chuckled softly. “The opticor is the ultimate in firepower. My clan mate has one that he uses to go hunting Sentient Battalysts. Two shots and they’re dead.”  
“I have no idea what you just said. So, I’ll assume that was a yes.”

“Destroyed transports coming up. You should get those turrets online. It’s always a good idea to get rescue targets moving. The longer they hang around, the more chance they can be killed.” Tesul vanished and her warframe was suddenly where she had been.

Shepard and her squad ran to where the AA turrets where. “You know, for something that looks like a kid, she gives me the creeps,” Garrus observed.  
“Javik was creepy when we met him,” Liara returned.  
“He still is. Tesul is on a whole different level. You get the feeling that in person she is more dangerous?”  
“Enough, you two,” Shepard interjected. “We can discuss this later when we’re not busy saving people.”  
“Sorry, Shepard.”

Three Cerberus shuttles exited the upper atmosphere and approached the facility. Shepard saw a flash of yellow light out of the corner of her eye. Turning to see the destination, she witnessed the first shuttle get hit. Smoke started to rise from the left side. A second shot and the shuttle exploded. The two remaining shuttles split up and started to weave about. Shot after shot was fired in rapid succession. Most missed, but it only took two shots per shuttle to take them down.

“Jacob, the turrets should be online now.”  
“Affirmative, Shepard. All systems are green here.”  
That was good news. “Then get your people out to the landing pad and get them out of here.”

They went back into the base and watched as the scientists readied. Shepard was shocked to learn that there were children. These weren’t just scientists, they were families. Shaking her head, she went over to Jacob. “I was surprised to see you here.”  
“You opened my eyes to what Cerberus really was, Shepard. I left, but then I get a message from Brynn saying that she needs help. I followed your example in helping them.”  
“Thanks, Jacob, for that lovely vote of confidence. You did a good job.”

They gathered outside to keep watch as the scientists boarded the escape shuttles and left. “So what’s the kid’s story?” Jacob asked.  
“She’s not a kid. Remember that if you want to stay healthy. She threatened Wrex for calling her kid.”  
“Well, she looks like a kid.”  
“It’s a long story. She’s an alien from somewhere. She got lost and doesn’t know where her home is.”

The last shuttle was ready to take off. Jacob, Garrus and Liara climbed on board while Shepard turned around and walked back towards where Tesul was standing. She was perched atop a wall, scanning the skies with her enormous weapon. “We need to have a talk when this is over. I have so many questions about you.”  
“I know. I also owe you an apology. If you’ll come to my orbiter, I’ll explain it all to you. But only you may come.” The monotone voice of the warframe was a sharp contrast to the beautiful voice of Tesul. Shepard nodded to her and ran back to the shuttle. She watched the facility grow smaller behind them, please with the successful rescue of the scientists.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the fluff scene. They aren't really something I can write. My beta readers are my mildly dyslexic brothers who hate anything remotely romance so not much help from them.  
> If you have any tag suggestions feel free to tell me.


	5. Orbiter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard pays Tesul a visit aboard her Orbiter

Shepard stood in the shuttle bay, ready to depart for Tesul’s orbiter. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to go alone.” Garrus was deeply concerned about his beloved going into an unknown place alone. The last time she had done so, a relay had been destroyed and she had been locked up.  
“Garrus, whether I am alone or not won’t change how safe I am. I’ll be in contact with you the whole time.”  
“I still don’t like it.”

Cortez fired up the Kodiak and took off for the coordinates that had been provided. After a short trip, they came to Tesul’s orbiter. It was bright yellow, black and a light grey. It was long and bulky with none of the edges that allowed for leaving and entering orbit. There were no sharps edges but there was no smooth flow front to back.

“Where do I take us, Commander?”  
“I would assume that there is an opening in the back. That’s where the cargo bay door normally is on a ship.”  
“Are you sure that there is only one person on that ship?”  
“She says that it’s only her.”

The back of the ship had revealed no opening among the engines at the back. Cortez circled the ship and eventually found an opening on the underside of the ship. he rose up into the cargo bay and found that there wasn’t any space for him to set down the Kodiak. “Just get close to the edge and I’ll jump across. I’ll radio when you can come to collect me.”

The inside of the hanger was the same colour as outside. She could call it a hanger because she could see four landing craft hanging from the ceiling. The first was a triangle shaped oddity with a long tail. Next was narrow rectangular one with four spindly arms pointing forward and backwards. The next had a narrow body as well, but instead of spindly arms, it had blade-like wings. The final landing craft had such a weird shape that she didn’t even know where to begin describing it. They all had the same colour scheme as the hanger.

Other than the four craft, there was nothing else in the area, not a crate or other object to be seen. A single lone, circular door led out from the hanger. Shepard moved through the corridor from the hanger. It was poorly lit with lights that shone on the wall, casting shadows along the floor.

She was starting to sense a pattern in everything she saw. The landing craft in the hanger, Tesul’s warframes, even the clothes she wore were all the same colour scheme. The corridor was no different, yellows, blacks and greys.

The corridor ended in a round door that hissed open when she approached it. Instead of more empty corridor, she came out in a circular area with a rug in the middle. Several doors branched off from it. To her left was a ramp. The rug wasn’t the only decorations: pictures were all over the wall, strange moving sculptures lined the floor against the wall, and the strangest mounted fish stood in places of pride along the wall.

“Tesul?” Shepard called out. She noticed that the sculptures were also hanging off the ceiling.  
“I’m up here. Come up the ramp.” Shepard turned up the ramp. It opened into a rectangular area with a warframe at one end and another ramp on the far end.

Tesul was standing before a console to the left of the far ramp. “Sorry, I got distracted. I decided to craft some more ciphers while I waited for you.”  
“Your ship is strange,” Shepard said looking around at yet more weird sculptures.  
“There’s nothing wrong with my orbiter. I have a very respectable colour scheme. No chaotic colours or piles of sculptures.”

She looked around the room and the sculptures that seemed to occupy every evert available space and wondered how it could get any worse. “What’s with everything being the same colour?”  
“Simplicity. It means I don’t have to think of a new colour for everything and it all matches.”

Tesul finished whatever she was busy with and turned to Shepard. “I’m sorry but I’m going to need to block your connection back to your ship. I may potentially tell you stuff that I do not wish to be spread.”  
Shepard frowned. “My crew is not going to like that. I will have to warn them first or they will assume you killed me.”  
Tesul frowned in return. “That seems inefficient. If I wanted to kill you, I would just have flown over to your ship and killed you there with no risk of revealing my location.”  
Shepard had to admit that she made a valid point. “Garrus, I’m going dark. See you again when this is over.” She severed the connection before Garrus could argue back.

“Ordis, block all signals.”  
“Signal jamming initiated, Operator.”

“Let us go somewhere more comfortable, Commander.” Tesul motioned to another ramp that was on the opposite side of the warframe.  
“Where are your other Warframes?”  
“They are in storage, only my current active frame is in the forward section.”

They walked down the ramp back into the circular room. The door Tesul went to was opposite from the hanger door. The door opened and Shepard walked into a very nice looking room. Unlike the rest of the ship, the walls were not a single colour but contained geometric patterns. In the centre of the room before the door was a large aquarium with even more strange fish. Walking around the tank she saw an even larger one in the right wall.

Down a short flight of stairs, she came to a lounge. The centre of the room had a low table with a device that projected a dancing hologram upwards. A gentle tune played through the room. Against the centre aquarium was a long low bench. Scattered across the bench and every corner the room were soft plush toys. The final thing to draw her attention was the large window in the room. It was certainly much larger than the one on the Normandy’s observation deck, going from floor to ceiling.

“Take a seat. I managed to scrounge up some Chimurr that I got with some stuff from Cetus.” Shepard sat down on the bench, her knees came up too high and she felt uncomfortable. Tesul went to the table and brought an ornate tea set. The pot and cups were white with decorative gold trimming. She poured a cup and passed it to Shepard.  
She noticed that Tesul did not pour herself a cup. “Are you not having?”  
Tesul shook her head, “I don’t drink or eat. I only had this because someone in Cetus added to my shipment.”

Shepard took a sip and had to fight to not spit it back out again. Her face scrunched up as the bitter taste washed down her throat. Tesul grimaced, “Is it that bad?”  
Shepard nodded, “It’s incredibly bitter.”  
The cup was taken from her hands and returned to the tray. “I’m sorry. I had no idea what it tastes like. I only had the stuff by chance and the tea set I found in some ruins and was using it as a decoration.”  
“It’s okay,” Shepard reassured her.

Having put the cup back down, Tesul went and sat cross-legged before Shepard. After a second she floated off the ground until she was looking Shepard in the eyes. There was no blue glow to indicate that biotics had been used.

“I found my home.” Tesul interrupted Shepard’s studying. “Or rather I found where it should have been.”  
That was good news. Tesul’s people would be valuable allies to gain. “Where are they? This must be wonderful for you.” She noticed Tesul’s saddened face. “What is the matter?”  
“They aren’t here. My brothers and sisters are in another world. I found the Origin System and there is no evidence that they were ever there or will be there.”

She was certain she could tears starting to form in the corners of Tesul’s eyes. “Are you sure you found the place?”  
“Your Sol Systems. It’s the same. The planets are the same, translated they have the same name. But it is certainly not my home. I thought maybe I had merely moved through time when I first heard it. But Ordis pointed out that you have Element Zero and we do not. I can only conclude that I am in another World.”

A tight knot formed in Shepard’s gut. She knew exactly what Tesul felt. She felt it every time she had a nightmare about the Reapers winning. “Can’t you get back the way you got here. Travel through the Void.”  
Tesul shook her head. “The Void does not work like that. I would need a void drive to enter the Void. Such knowledge was lost a long time. Even if I had a void drive, there is almost no chance that I would end up back in my world. There is more chance that the Void will tear my orbiter apart.”

“So, you’re stuck here?”  
“Yes. But do not fear, I agreed to help you and this won’t change that. I am Tenno. Ancient warrior, master of gun and blade.”

Tesul stood up, “Can we not dwell on this subject please. I have found that it is not good for me to dwell on the past or I suffer for it. I have some things I made for you.” Shepard followed Tesul back out the room.

As they left the room, Tesul’s varren-like pet walked into the room. Tesul scratched it under its chin and Shepard could hear it give a deep purr, like a large cat. “What is that?”  
“He’s a kavat. Normally they have fur, but Tika is a feral strain so no fur. I have krubrows, but I keep them in stasis. I like my kavats.”

They went back to where Tesul had been when Shepard had first come aboard. “You recovered from your sadness very quickly.”  
“It’s not the first time that my world has been torn apart.”  
“What happened?”  
“I awoke from millennia of sleep.”

Tesul picked up a belt from the work surface. Shepard counted a series of seven silver balls attached to it. “What are those?”  
“They’re spectres, cosmic grade. I went over the specs on your weapons and you are seriously underpowered. These are good to use in tight situations where you need the extra firepower.”  
She peered at the smooth silver balls she had just been handed. There didn’t seem to be any way to deploy whatever these spectres were. Maybe they were similar to EDI’s decoys. “How do I use this?”  
“Just throw them and they’ll deploy.”  
“Thank you.”

“I want to ask you how got down to the planet? On Tuchanka you said that you were on your ship.”  
Tesul sighed, “I was afraid that that would be your first question. Some things about the Tenno are secret, that is one of them.”  
Now Shepard felt bad for asking, “Sorry for asking.”  
“Don’t be,” Tesul said waving her hand dismissively. “Curiosity is a good thing. Just when it comes to the Tenno, it’s wiser to not ask the questions.”

“Can I at least ask what the Tenno are? You’ve referred to yourself as master of gun and blade on a few occasions.”  
“The Tenno are warriors. We fight to keep the system safe and protect people. More than that I cannot tell you.”  
“Is Tenno your race or your group?”  
“Both.”

“Is everything about you a secret?”  
Tesul broke into a grin that spread across her face. “Not everything. Maybe one day I’ll tell you some of them. However, I have something else I want to give you.” Tesul vanished and reappeared at the ramp almost instantly. “Follow me, I have something that can help clear up our communication problem.”

Shepard followed her, but she had already vanished again. The large circular door opposite the ramp was open, so she went in. Beyond the door was a large well-lit room. It was mainly empty except for a few of the sculptures that formed a pathway to an oval pod near the back. Behind the pod, the floor dropped off and silver trees grew up into the ceiling. On either side of the pathway were a number of circular markings on the floor.

Tesul was standing before one of the circles that had risen from the floor. “Where is it?” she muttered. “I know I had a spare one here. Earrings and masks, but no implant.”  
“What are you looking for?” Shepard called out.  
“A spare somatic implant I collected a while back. I keep that kind of stuff here but I cannot find it.”

“What is a somatic implant?” Why was she looking for an implant?  
“Somatic link is how we connect with our warframes. We all have these implants that help with that. They also act as communicators between us. I can’t talk via your communicators, they can’t pick up a somatic link. If I gave you somatic implant I would be able to talk with no matter the distance.”

“Is it really that important that I get this thing?”  
Tesul stopped digging through the storage container and turned to Shepard. “Yes and no. You don’t need it to tell me stuff. But you’re going to need it if you want me to talk back. I also kinda need you to have it. Most Tenno hate being alone. We form clans and work together to build dojos where we can meet. We constantly talk with each, the same as you do. I’ve have seriously missed having someone to talk to.”

“You talk through your warframe.”  
“I don’t like doing it. It’s like talking with your hand, not as natural and you need to focus to do it.”  
Lonely, Tesul was lonely, Shepard realized. Javik was also lonely. But unlike him, she wasn’t locking herself away and looking to make friends. “What will this implant do?”  
“It’ll allow me to talk directly to you. It will most likely sound like I’m in your head. That’s about it.”

Tesul turned back to the container. “Ah ha, there it is,” she exclaimed under her breath. She turned back to Shepard and held something aloft. Curious, she came over to see the implant. It looked to be the same basic size as a biotic implant, just a bit longer and narrower. Its surface was four vertical oval nodes.

“Where does it go?”  
Tesul brushed hair aside on the right-hand side of her face to reveal a similar one. “Right about here.”  
She was hesitant to have something so large put in her. But then she remembered that about thirty percent of her body was already cybernetic. “Okay, I’ll take it.”

Tesul grinned broadly. “Thank you.” she motioned to Shepard to follow to the pod at the back of the room.  
A thought crossed Shepard’s mind. “You said the implant is for connecting to your warframe. Would I be able to do that with it?”  
Tesul turned around. You need more than the implant to connect. Even if you could control a warframe, I wouldn’t let you. We project our minds into the warframes, if a non-Tenno does it there is a very high risk that you’ll become stuck in the warframe.”

Shepard frowned. “That sounds like a very dangerous risk.”  
“Not to a Tenno.” The pod opened to reveal seat. “Get in and I’ll put the implant in. It’s a pity that your hair is so short.”

Shepard got in and Tesul set to work. Seconds later she said, “There, all in.”  
“That was fast.” Shepard raised her hand to feel the raised bumps on her forehead. She would have to check that her helmet fitted comfortably.

“That was only a piece of the full somatic implants.” She heard the voice, but Tesul’s lips did not move.  
“I heard you, but you didn’t talk,” she exclaimed.  
“I did talk,” this time Tesul’s lips moved. “Just I didn’t use my lips.”  
“How do I talk back to you? I assume I can.”  
“You can, just talk normally with the intention to talk to me. You don’t have to worry about interference.”

Shepard’s life kept getting stranger. The girl from the Tenth Street Reds would never have imagined that she would one day live such a strange life. Chasing a rogue spectre, dying, coming back to life, falling in love with her best friend, who happened to be a turian, curing the genophage, and now having a direct link to a millennia-old alien.

“Shepard!” Garrus’s frantic voice came over her comlink.  
“I hear you, Garrus.”  
“Finally, are you okay. I told you not to go dark.”  
“I’m fine Garrus. Tesul didn’t want you all listening in on her secrets.”

“You should probably go back to your ship,” Tesul said.  
Shepard nodded, “Yes. I’ll contact you if something comes up. I’m honoured that you have trusted me so.”  
“Your history shows that you are worthy of that trust. And I apologize again for the chimurr.”

Shepard walk out of the room, stopping at the door to look back. Tesul had climbed into the pod and it was closing over her. She went through the corridor to the hanger. Cortez was waiting for her with the Kodiak. It was a testament to his skill that he could keep it hovering in place like that.

“Everything go well, Commander?”  
“Yes, Cortez. I now can talk to a really old alien.”  
“Don’t you already do that with the prothean in engineering?”  
“Javik? He doesn’t talk. He just sulks and insults every other species.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun fact, you actually see an orbiter in-game if you go to a relay and go to the top of the central room. If you look through the glass ceiling you can see one circling the relay.
> 
> I just have to say thanks to everyone that has read and given Kudos. It's awesome that so many people like what I have to write. Hopefully, I won't let you guys down.
> 
> Just a warning, this story will be taking a hiatus in July as I will be going on Holiday.


	6. Citadel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A planned outing to the Citadel does not go as planned.

Joker sat on the comms trying to raise the control tower. “Nothing, Commander. No response.”   
“I’m not getting anything on my scanner either,” Tesul’s voice filled Shepard’s head.   
“I’m going to try the emergency channels,” Joker said. “There has to be something.”

Joker must have gotten hold of someone because he was humming in agreement with someone that Shepard could not hear. “Commander, there’s a communication from Thane. He says it’s important. Think you’ll want to hear this.”   
“Put him through.”

“Shepard. The Citadel is under attack. Cerberus troops are everywhere and they’re in control of the docks,” the coarse voice of Thane filled the cockpit.   
“Are you safe?” she asked concerned.   
“No, I had to evade their commandos at the hospital. I’m currently in a Presidium storefront. I’m going to make my way to C-sec headquarters”   
“Good call.”

The call disconnected and Shepard turned the ship comms on. “Alright, people, shore leave is cancelled. The Citadel is under attack from Cerberus. I want everyone geared up. Garrus, Vega, you’re with me.”

Privately she asked Tesul, “Is your current frame any good at killing things.”   
The empty space next to her was suddenly no longer empty. Tesul’s current warframe stood next to her and looked at her with its circle of yellow light that reminded her of a geth platform. The warframe even had a hood. Four arrows were mounted to the left upper arm.

“You cannot kill that which you cannot see or hear.”   
“Just how stealthy can you be?” she asked. The warframe made her think about a hunter prowling through the shadows, silently taking out her prey.”   
“I am a phantom, a dream. I was never here,” and the warframe vanished again.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Shepard scowled at where she assumed Tesul still was.   
“I can wipe out a base without them even knowing I was there.” Tesul chuckled softly. “I’m not there anymore.”

“Sorry that our planned tour of the Citadel isn’t going to take place.” They had spent a few hours planning the logistics of the outing. Tesul had specifically brought a stealthy warframe. Most of the crew didn’t even know that she was on board. Kasumi wouldn’t be pleased to hear that there was someone sneakier than her.   
“Don’t blame yourself. I’ll still get to see the place, even if it is while fighting.

* * *

 

The shuttle was loaded and took off for C-sec headquarters. “I thought our new alien friend would be joining us,” Vega said.   
“Be nice, Vega. She could be right behind you.”   
Vega turned around and looked at the bulkhead behind him. “Nope, nothing there but shuttle.”

“You’ll never guess where I am unless you are another Tenno.”   
“Couldn’t this help me?” Shepard asked, tapping the Somatic implant.   
“Maybe you’re actually a Loco and not a Lola,” Vega remarked. “Talking to yourself like that is never a healthy sign.”

“Oh, zip it, Vega. I explained the implant to you already” Shepard scolded him. “It’s no different to our communicators, except this is a very private channel.” Her vision briefly went blurry and then cleared up. She observed a shape that looked like water suspended in the air. Her eyes went wide as the object waved and she realized that she was seeing Tesul.   
“I figured you needed to see me so you could avoid shooting me.”   
“Thanks, Tesul.”

Vega kept his mouth. Garrus just shook his head, a human custom he had picked up from Shepard. Over the last few days, he had gotten used to Shepard talking into thin air as she talked to Tesul. He didn’t trust her being in Shepard’s head like that but Shepard seemed okay with it.

The shuttle sped through the Presidium ring toward C-sec. Along balconies they could see C-sec engaging with Cerberus. “I didn’t realize there was so much space here,” Tesul spoke through her warframe for everyone to hear her. However, Shepard still heard her through the implant. It gave her voice a weird double tone. “I will send for my archwing, I have a feeling I will need it.”

“You never seen anything this big before?” Vega asked.   
“We have the Corpus gas cities which are rather sizable, but I have never seen them in their entirety since they are buried too deep in the clouds.”   
Any further questions by Vega were put on hold by Cortez’s announcement that they were approaching the C-sec docks.

The docks were littered with destroyed sky cars and swarming with Cerberus commandos. The shuttle door opened and Tesul leapt over the vast distance between them and the docks. Her cloak dropped the moment she leapt, but it was back before she even hit the ground. Cerberus troops turned to face them and died with a blade through their chests.

Something impacted Shepard in her chest. It wasn’t a bullet because her shields were intact. “Um, Shepard, you’re cloaked,” Garrus said behind her. She looked at her two squadmates and saw that they too were cloaked.   
“Tesul, what did you do?”   
“Cloaked you. now move, the effect only lasts like a minute before I need to refresh it. While it lasts, all your gunfire will be silenced.”

Cloaked and silent, they tore through the Cerberus commandos. Tesul was right, you can’t kill what you can’t see or hear. She wondered how she did it. Cloaking technology that adapted to multiple people was an infiltrator’s dream. And weapon silencing, that should not be possible. She spared a sideways glance to see what Tesul was doing on her side of the room. All she could see was two Cerberus troopers shooting wildly toward they assumed their foe was. Odds were good that she wasn’t even close to where they were aiming.

A C-sec officer was tending to a wounded Commander Bailey by the entrance. “Shepard, man is it good to see you. I thought we were done for.”   
“Bailey! What are you doing here.” She was glad to see him. She might not always agree with his methods, but she couldn’t deny that he was a decent cop. Garrus nodded his head in greeting.   
“Trying to retake C-sec headquarters. Cerberus took in in the first push. We’ve been trying to get back in. Without the network, everyone in C-sec is flying blind. Just where Cerberus wants us.”

“Are the councillors still alive?” Garrus asked.   
“No idea,” Bailey said. Shepard held out a hand and helped him stand up. “They split up. I’ll know more once I get to a terminal inside.”   
“Can you get us inside,” Shepard asked.   
“We were almost in until I was interrupted by a bullet.” Bailey went to the door console and ten seconds later, the door opened.

The walls and floors inside were covered in blood and bullet holes. No bodies though. Cerberus must have started cleaning the place already, confident in their victory. Bailey seated himself before a terminal and set to work. Shepard and her squad kept guard for any Cerberus that thought to come back their way.

“Well, that is interesting,” he muttered.   
“What is it, Bailey?”   
“A warning from Councillor Valern. He’s supposed to be here meeting the executor. The massage says, ‘Be on guard. The likelihood of betrayal from within is high.’ Nothing else.”

“Why would the salarian councillor be here?” Vega asked.   
“Normally it would mean someone big is about to be prosecuted.” Bailey sat staring at the terminal. “That someone big must have had friends in Cerberus.”  
“Well, better hope he’s still alive in here to give us an answer.

“Where would he be?”   
“In the executor’s office,” Garrus supplied. “It’s fairly defensible.”   
“Well then let’s go save a councillor.”

Just before they left, Bailey patched them into the newly reopened C-sec network. “Thane?” she contacted him. “We are headed for the executor’s office to save the salarian councillor.”   
“I’m close. Running is proving to be difficult, but I’ll meet you there.”

It wasn’t long before they encountered Cerberus troops. “Cerberus just beyond this door,” Tesul said, blocking their way forward. Vega didn’t see her and walked straight into her. “Let me cloak you again before you enter.”

Cloaked, there was no need for cover so long as they moved faster than Cerberus could react. Not that they had many enemies to kill. “Garrus, you might have some serious completion as a sniper,” she laughed as the third Cerberus unit died before he could shoot it.   
“No competition, he would lose every time unless he can get a head shot around a corner.”

Shepard relayed the message to Garrus and he groaned. “I can’t believe my beloved is picking on me like that.”   
“She actually said that,” Shepard insisted.   
“The only way that could happen was if the bullet was to bounce off something first.”   
“She says she’ll prove it to you one day.”   
“Why not now?”   
“Apparently, you missed her taking the shot because you can’t see invisible people.”

Occasionally they came across bodies that had not been moved yet. Garrus bent down to inspect a salarian corpse. “Shot in the back of the head. Looks like surprise and not execution.”   
“Those are some hardcore traitors,” Vega swore.   
“First Mars and now here. Cerberus likes their sleeper agents.”

They rode an elevator up to the office level. The sprinklers rained down on the fires that seemed to litter every other surface. Cerberus hadn’t cleared any bodies and they littered the place. “Ridgefield? Lamont? You alive?” Garrus called out.   
“Quiet, Scars,” Vega hushed him.   
“They know we’re here,” Shepard said, scanning the office cubicles.

However, unlike the lower levels, this level was empty of Cerberus. Unhindered, they move swiftly toward the executor’s office. They never made it to executor’s office because Tesul spotted the councillor. Shepard wondered how she had spotted a cloaked salarian.

They veered off toward where he was, only for an assassin to fall onto the floor. A gaping hole was between his eyes. “Tesul, how did you know he was there?” Shepard whispered.   
“I always know where everyone is. Trust me it takes a lot to hide from my radar.”

“He’s going to kill us all,” Councillor Valern said.   
“Who is going to kill us, the assassin is dead.”   
“Udina. He has the other councillors and is leading them towards Cerberus.”

Thane showed up just then. “Thane, perfect timing. I need you to look after the councillor while I go save the other councillors.”   
“Glad I could be here in time to be some service.”

“Bailey, have you managed to locate the other councillors yet.”   
“They’re being taken to a shuttle pad on the Presidium. Sending you the location now. I’ll keep trying to raise them on the comm.”

They went down a flight of stairs and out onto a small parking area. Tesul reappeared beside them and jumped off the ledge. There was a whoosh and then she was hovering in the air with her boxy wings. “Tesul, can you clear a path for us?” They blinked and she was gone.

“You think she cloaked?” Vega asked. They climbed into a C-sec skycar that was still intact and took off.   
“That or she’s just really fast with that thing,” Garrus suggested.   
“Both suggestions are correct,” Shepard supplied, Tesul having told her.

Cerberus fighter took off from somewhere and came after them. There was a thud and a phantom landed on the hood of the car. “Tesul, I’ve got unwanted guests that need taking care of.”   
“I’m coming. Normally when I move this fast I have a much bigger gun.”   
“How big?” Shepard was curious just how big Tesul’s guns could go. Personally, she had a hard time carrying around the M-920 Cain since it was so large.   
“My heavy guns are so large that I need a zero-G environment to carry them.” Okay, point to Tesul for having such large weapons.

The three Cerberus fighters before her and the phantom on the roof were suddenly pulled together by a powerful force. Garrus peered out the window at the ball of flesh and machine. “I might be going crazy here, Shepard but I would say those fighters are covered in ice.” Moments later, they exploded.

“Bailey, have you managed to raise the councillors on the comms.”   
“Nothing yet. I’ll keep trying.”

An explosion rocked the back of the skycar, followed by them plummeting toward the ground. Groaning they clambered out of the ruin of their skycar. “Next time I’m driving,” Garrus moaned.   
“Oh, like you saw the rocket and would have avoided it?” Shepard replied.   
“First the Mako and now this. Are you certain you’re not purposefully doing it?”

She wanted to tell him to stop moaning about the Mako but was interrupted by Bailey. “I see from your signal that you have stopped.”   
“Yeah, we took a rocket to the rear. Going to have to leg from here.”   
“You had better hurry. I’ve spotted a group of Cerberus commandos headed their way.”   
“Thanks for the heads.

“Tesul, can you go ahead and secure the councillors?”   
“On it.”

They moved toward where the councillors where. Even here, far from C-sec, there was evidence of Cerberus. Civilians gunned down where they had been going about their lives. The Cerberus stragglers they came across were quickly dispatched. Every time she saw another corpse, her desire to put a bullet in The Illusive Man’s head grew.

They arrived in the plaza near the councillors, only to have their way blocked by an Atlas mech. Shepard cursed herself for not taking a grenade launcher as she dived behind cover. Tesul appeared behind the mech, surrounded by small drones that fired at the mech. “You sounded like something big came your way and you needed help.”

The mech was down and they sprinted toward the elevators. They grabbed one and headed up. “Bailey, anything on the commandos?”   
“They’re just behind you. I’ll slow their elevator. You save the councillors.”

“Tesul, you got eyes on the councillors?”   
“Tagged and waiting. Udina is just standing there. He thinks his plan is going without a hitch. I can take him out now.”   
“Go for it,” Shepard ordered. “Take the bastard out and keep the others safe.”   
“Bang, splat,” Tesul said cheerily. “Two eyes, one shot. So much easier to do that when they’re not wearing any armour.”

“Are you always this cheerful, killing stuff,” Shepard growled. Garrus and Vega looked at her, wondering what she was talking with Tesul about now.   
“Sometimes. My home was perpetually in conflict. The Grineer? They’re a race of clones. So believe me, they had plenty of cannon fodder to send our way. It gets a bit repetitive after the thousandth kill. So I started setting challenges for myself. But what does it matter, I killed your traitor.”

Shepard decided not to pursue the matter any further and instead waited out the elevator ride to the top. “I can’t believe the elevators are still this slow,” Garrus groused. “You’d think in the few thousand years that the asari have been here they could at least have gotten them working properly.”

The elevator door opened and they ran out. They passed through the outer doors onto the terrace and were greeted by shots. Garrus and Shepard dived for cover while Vega ducked back behind the doorframe. “Ashley, it’s me, Shepard,” she called out.   
“I know who it is,” Ashley shouted. “You’re still with Cerberus. You had Udina killed and now have come to kill the others.”   
“I’m not with Cerberus!” Shepard shouted back. “Udina sold us all out. He’s the one working for them.”

“I saw the footage of you killing the salarian councillor. They should never have let you go.”   
Ouch, Ashley’s words hurt. Shepard had hoped that despite her reaction on Mars, she had moved on from constantly accusing her of being with Cerberus. And what was this about footage of her killing the salarian councillor. There hadn’t even been a gun pointed at him. Udina must have had footage ready in order to convince Ashley. It hurt her deeply that Ashley had believed Udina’s lie so easily. “Ashley, I’m trying to save your life here. Coming up that elevator is a group of Cerberus commandos to kill you all. There would have been an assassin but we killed him.”

Ashley wasn’t listening to her. She continued to shout how Shepard was a traitor to humanity. “Tesul, do you have any way incapacitate her without killing her?”   
“Are you sure you want her to live? Her rant about betraying humanity sounds pretty fanatical.”   
“You heard that?”   
Tesul chuckled, “I’m standing right next to her. Give me the word and I’ll cleave her head from her shoulders. No one will even know it was me.”   
“Please, I would rather not kill her. She was once a friend.” Once long ago. Despite everything that had passed in the intervening years, Shepard did not want to give up on Ashley.   
“I can send them all to sleep, that will give you time to cover them. The elevator is almost here.”

They leapt over the barrier and found Ashley and the councillors sleeping. “What happened to them?” Vega asked.   
“Tesul took them out.”   
“By sending them to sleep? Damn, you’re crazy, Loco,” he said into the air.   
“She says that’s hardly the worst thing she has been called.”

The sound of the door behind them being cut turned them around. “Relax, it’s Captain Bailey.” This Tesul said through her warframe.   
“How can you know?” Garrus growled.   
“I have him and C-sec tagged on my radar as friendlies.”   
The councillors looked around for the source of the voice that had come from thin air.

The door burst open and Captain Bailey stepped through. “Dammit, Loco was right,” Vega muttered. “She can see through walls?”   
“Yes, she can,” Shepard relayed Tesul’s response.

“Bailey, I didn’t expect to see you. What about the kill squad that was behind us.”   
“We slowed them down. They bailed when they realized we would get here before them.”

“Udina is already dead but I want Lieutenant-commander Williams arrested for aiding him. Make sure the councillors are taken to safety.” The C-sec officers nodded and set to work.

“Do you really want her locked up?” Garrus asked.   
“No, but she still helped Udina, even when he was dead. I want to be sure that she isn’t really a Cerberus sleeper agent.”   
“I can make her talk. Her every secret could be laid bare before you,” Tesul offered privately.   
Shepard scowled in the general direction that she assumed Tesul was and shook her head.

“Come on guys, let’s get out of here. There might still some pockets Cerberus units holding out.”


	7. Ventkids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ventkids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about there being no chapter last Sunday. I did not feel well and sitting before a computer was not very appealing.

Tesul wove her way through the skyline of the lower wards. Ordis had intercepted a Cerberus communication indicating the location of a hidden base that was going to be cleared out. She dropped down next to a skycar and cloaked before three civilians standing next to it could see her. They appeared to be loading something into it.

She double checked that this building had been the source of the transmissions. She scanned them and found Cerberus signatures all over their gear. She unholstered her Lex Prime and took them down. She emptied a few clips into the engine until she was satisfied that it wouldn’t fly.

She went into the building and proceeded to work her way down. Only the top three floors were Cerberus. The floors below that were covered in blood and the bodies of hapless civilians. She put an extra bullet in everyone’s head on her way back up. What did Cerberus hope to gain by killing people like that? They were in a war for their lives and they wanted to kill allies.

Cerberus knew that they had lost and were slinking back into the shadows with their tail between their legs. Tesul launched into archwing and continued with her patrol. The presidium had been the main focus of the attempted coup, but the wards had not escaped unscathed. C-sec depots had been bombed simultaneously across the four arms. Not all of them, just enough that C-sec scrambled to respond and empty out the headquarters.

Tesul was a blur as she sped through the wards. She rounded a corner and collided with a shuttle. She corrected herself from the spin she was sent into. She hoped it wasn’t a C-sec vehicle, she didn’t want them thinking she was attacking them. Nope, no way it was C-sec, not with how fast it took off, weaving through the buildings in an attempt to throw off any pursuers.

Three blinks later and she was flying beside the shuttle. It was larger than Shepard’s Kodiak shuttle, about the size of a corpus Condor. No markings, but she read a Cerberus presence inside. She toyed with the pilot, matching his every manoeuvre. Tiring of her prey, she used cosmic crush to pull it in and damage the engines.

Downward it spiralled toward the street level. Tesul followed, using crush to pull it up, hopefully giving anyone below time to clear out of the way. Civilians always made missions complicated. You had to be constantly aware of where you were shooting. Incorrectly label a civilian and they would be ashes the second an ember came near them.

The shuttle, now not much more than a crushed ball of metal, crashed into the side of a building and slid down the last few meters into the street below. She detached from her archwing and dropped down next to it. An explosion rocked the building and threw her warframe across the street.

Damnit, there must have been explosives inside. Her warframe’s systems were damaged and almost failing. Slowly her sentinel repaired the systems. She pulled the shrapnel out and the holes slowly filled up. “That was worse than a bloody bombard rocket to the face,” she muttered.

Slowly the people returned to view the crash. Two C-sec officers stepped forward from the crowd. They pointed their pistols at her but didn’t fire. She clasped her hands together and bowed to the crowd. Like most Tenno, she had a flair for the dramatic. She cast invisibility and straight away shot a zip line halfway up a nearby building. She was gone over their heads before they could even register that she was no longer there.

She sat there and observed the people below her. There were mainly salarians, turians and asari. There were a few humans but not nearly as many as the first three species. No elcor, but there a few volus and krogan.

She found it fascinating to watch C-sec in action. She had never encountered something like law enforcement before. Clearly some of the colonies had it, but no one ever tried anything when the Tenno were around. Losing your guts in a myriad of different fashions was low on people’s agenda. Unless you happened to be grineer or corpus, then somehow it was what they wanted most in life.

C-sec placed small pillars around the explosion and small holographic strip sprung up between them, cordoning off the area. A few more C-sec officers arrived and kept the civilians away. It started to get boring after a while. She had expected a bit more, but it was just damage control and clean up. Clean up wasn’t new to her, having had helped clear up infestation on numerous occasions, or moving crashed shuttles from some small colony that was just a number in the corpus ledgers.

She moved from her zip line until she found an open vent that looked out over a market area. She parked her warframe and transferred out. She sat on the vent edge and watched the activity below. It wasn’t very full, but a few people attempted to go about their lives. It rather looked like the market in Cetus had been transplanted into Fortuna. She loved both places and the people there. After a particularly bad week, she would normally visit one of them just to be reminded of who she was fighting for.

She hummed a tune, slowly building the beat until she was using her amp to knock on the vent walls. Roky would have been displeased with her awful attempt at skegg. She loved the Ventkids with their wacky behaviour. She had spent long hours in the vents listening to them skegging up.

“Who are you?” the sudden voice from behind startled her. She turned around to face the speaker. There was a young human child standing in the bend of the pipe behind her. He was dirty and his clothes were not in great condition.  
“I’m Tesul. And you are?”  
“Cricket.” The boy was nervously eyeing her warframe.

“You live in the vents, Cricket?” He gave a short nod. Her eyes lit up at that. A Ventkid, somethings stayed the same across worlds. “You come to listen to me play music?”  
Cricket stopped looking at the warframe to look at Tesul. “That was not music. That was a vorcha having a fit.”  
“Hey!” Tesul waved a finger in Cricket’s face. “I wasn’t that bad.”

Cricket shook his head. He nervously shifted his gaze between Tesul and her warframe. She bounded over to him and wrapped an arm over his shoulders. “Listen, Cricket, I’m not your enemy. Why don’t you take me to your logical fam and I’ll show how to play some skegg.”  
He shifted under the arm, trying to free himself, and found himself in a firm grip. “What do you mean by logical fam?”  
“Come on. You live in a vent, so no Mumsie or Dadsie. No biological fam means you choose your logical fam.”

Cricket his head to look at the crazy woman holding him. Seeing the clueless look in his eyes, Tesul sighed. “Look, just take me to where the other Ventkids are and I’ll teach you to play Skegg. Rocky would have a fit if he found out you guys don’t know what Skegg is.”

He did not move. She grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around so that he was facing down the vent pipe. She gave him a shove forward and then dashed down the pipe ahead of him. “Come on.”

* * *

 

Cricket took a glance at the weird mannequin in the vent entrance. It wasn’t moving, maybe it was some weird mech that the crazy girl had been controlling. She called out to him again. One last look at it and he took off after her.

She was weird. Adults only approached the vent kids to run errands for them. Children with parents avoided them and the vents. She didn’t belong in the vents, her clothes were too nice. They looked heavy duty, maybe she was from a freighter.

He wondered what this Skegg was that she wanted to teach them. If it was the banging noise that she had been making earlier, then he wasn’t sure he wanted to learn.

The pipe narrowed and he crawled through. The pipe split into three. “So which way do we go from here?”  
“What are you doing?” he demanded.  
“I’m going to teach you Skegg. You can’t be Ventkids if you can’t play Skegg.”

“Why?”  
She peered at him, “Why, what?”  
“Why associate with us?”

“I don’t know what Ventkid means around here. But where I’m from, Ventkids are the most resourceful people I know. They have no fam, so they choose their fam. They build these awesome machines from parts that the stole from the corpus. You need something obtained, they’ll get it. And I reckon you lot aren’t too different. If you weren’t, you would quickly end up dead.”

“What do you want from us?”  
she scowled, “Okay, I miss my home.”  
Realization dawned on him. “So, we remind you of these vent kids and therefore home.” She nodded. “You lose them to Reapers. I hear they’re destroying everything in their wake.”  
“No, I didn’t lose them to the Reapers. They’re just not here.”

“Left, go left,” Cricket said, relenting.  
She smiled and motioned down the left tunnel, “Lead the way.”

* * *

 

Tesul followed Cricket through the twist and certain on the tunnels. The tunnels were generally tall enough for her walk upright, but every now and then there were spots where she had to crawl through. Cricket skirted around a hole in an open area. She peered down the long shaft at the spinning fan below. That would certain death for any kid that slipped on the sloped surface around the hole.

The tunnel emptied out into a junction between numerous other tunnels. Bits and bobs were scattered across the area. Upturned boxes were used as tables and ragged blankets indicated sleeping areas.

The children that were there jumped up at the sight of the newcomer. Not one looked older than about fourteen. Presumably, they couldn’t fit through the narrow parts when they got too big.

“Alright, kids. Who here knows what Skegg is?” Everyone looked at her in astonishment. Tesul sighed, “I’ll take that as no one. Gather up anything that can make a noise when you bang it. Metallic objects are preferred.”

A boy stepped forward, he looked like the oldest of the lot. “What is going on here? Where did she come from, Cricket?”  
“Sorry, Mickey. I found her in the vent above the Psy Ward market. She insists she has to teach us this Skegg thing.”

She stepped forward and held out a hand to Mickey. “Hi, Mickey. I am Tesul. I’m going to assume that you are in charge.”  
He frowned at her, “I’m not in charge, I’m just the oldest.”  
“Sorry, you looked like you could be in charge. Now don’t give me that frown.”

“You can’t just barge in here and start telling us what to do.”  
Tesul gave a huff, “I’m not doing that. I just want to make sure that you guys know how to play Skegg. If Roky if heard that you guys are so barbaric he would have a fit.” She motioned to a duo in a corner. “You two, bring those plates over here.” She pointed at another kid, “find something to bang the wall with.”

She continued to give orders and the kids obeyed. They were taken aback by her brazen attitude and just did what she ordered. All except for Mickey, he just stood there and scowled at her. She ignored him and soon everything that she wanted was arrayed in front of her.

There was a low rumble from a kid next to her. Tesul turned to him and he looked down at the floor. The kid next to him also rumbled and slowly it spread among the group. What was going on with these kids? Then realization dawned on her, it was their stomachs grumbling from hunger.”

She turned to Mickey. “When last did you guys eat?”  
It was Cricket that answered, “The day before yesterday. I was looking for food when I found you.”  
“An no one gives you guys food? Even a little bit and the side?” The kids all shook their heads. “Well, that won’t do. How do you normally get food?”  
“We do odd jobs and use the money to buy food or we have to steal it.”

Tesul thought about it. “Well, my few million credits are useless as they are tied up in the corpus banking system.” She didn’t notice everyone gape at her. “So, stealing it is. Mickey, show the way and let’s go get some food for you kids.”

“Million credits,” he said almost reverently.  
“I don’t have them anymore. Even if I did, I doubt your vendors would accept them.” His face fell. “Let’s go steal some food for you lot.” Mickey still stood there looking dazed. “Come on, lead the way.” She grabbed him and shoved him toward a random exit. That snapped him out of his daze. Wordlessly he made for an exit. Two of the older kids fell in behind him.

Tesul followed the trio of ventkids through the winding maze of the vents. While they wound through the tunnels, she asked them about the food and what they could eat. Her reading during transit between worlds had been rather enlightening. She’d always figured that everyone would be able to eat anything. Mickey answered briefly, the two with him fleshed out what he meant. He also went through which places would have the right food.

They came to an exit and slipped through the narrow opening into a grimy alley. The alley opened onto a wide street with an assortment of food places. “You stay here,” she said to Mickey. He made to protest, but she silenced him. “I can get in and out with the stuff without being seen.”  
“Okay,” he said, relenting. “You remember which places are safe to get from?” Tesul nodded. “Remember, if there’s a turian selling it, then we can’t eat it.”  
“Yeah, I got it. You stay here and I’ll be back without them even have seen me.”

She went into void mode and dashed up onto a ledge. She initiated transference, teleporting her warframe to her current location. She went into prowl and stalked her way through the crowds. She nabbed a bag that was half full of some kind of food and moved on. If a vendor was too attentive to his wares, she just used a noise arrow to distract him and grab what she was after.

Satisfied with her haul, she turned around and headed back to the ventkids. She circled around the three of them, oblivious to the invisible warframe that was right behind them. She hid Ivara behind a stack of empty boxes and transferred out. She grabbed the bag and snuck up behind them. They peered around the corner into the street, looking for some sign of her.

“I’m over here guys.”  
All three of them jumped and scrambled over each other into the wall. “How did you do that?” Mickey asked, gasping for breath.  
“That’s my secret. Come on, let’s get this stuff back to the others.” She turned around and over to the vent, beckoning the kids to follow her.

Tesul though that the way their faces lit up when they saw the food was beautiful. After a round of thank yous, they hungrily dug into the food. Cricket tried to offer her some. She declined. “I don’t need. You need it.” He took back the proffered piece and bit into it.

When everyone had eaten, she picked up two short pieces of thin piping. She seated herself before the arrayed instruments. “Time for you lot to learn about Skegg.”

* * *

 

Shepard heard a banging noise. She looked around at the other spectres, none of them seemed to hear it. It sounded like someone was banging all sorts of metal objects against each other. She tried to listen to what was being said, but the din drowned out everything. Seriously, how did the others not hear it? She started to detect a rhythm to the banging.

“Tesul,” she growled, realizing why she was the only one getting a headache.  
“Yes, Commander, how can I help you?”  
“What are you doing right now?”  
“I’m teaching the Ventkids how to Skegg. Cricket is starting to get the hang of it.”

“Would this Skegg involve banging metal objects, like pipes.”  
There was a brief pause, “You can hear that?  
“Yes,” Shepard hissed through gritted teeth. “And I’m getting a roaring headache from it.”  
“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was transmitting to you.” Shepard sighed with relief as the banging ceased.

A salarian spectre she had not been introduced to was glowering at her. “Shepard, you are not to transmit during the meeting.”  
She rubbed her forehead in an attempt to rid herself of her headache. “I wasn’t transmitting. Someone was transmitting to me. I asked them to stop.”

For the rest of the meeting, she received cold stares. The two turian spectres in attendance were particularly to blame. Would they just stop with hating humans, the first contact war was over before she was born. She ignored them and just focused on the meeting.

* * *

 

The night wore on. At least Tesul thought that it might be night. She didn’t have a day-night cycle that she operated according to. The arms of the Citadel station also appear to not have one either, but the people living there seemed to operate according to an unspoken one.

The noise in the Ventkids’ hole slowly died down. Bellies full and worn out from the singing, they drifted to their corners and fell asleep.

When all she could hear was the gentle breathing of sleeping kids, she stood up and carefully wove between the sleeping bodies. She paused at the exit to take one last look. “Are leaving already?” a low voice call from the side. One of the piles shifted and a head poked up.

She smiled at Cricket, “Sorry, Kid, but I need to go back to saving the world.”  
He blinked at her, “Save the world from what?”  
“The world always needs saving from something. Right now it’s the Reapers.”  
The blinking stopped and he stared at her, “I heard some of the others say that the refugees said they were huge. What can you possibly do against them?”  
She bent down and looked him in the eyes. “Whatever I can.”

Tesul straightened up and turned back to the exit. “Will you be back?”  
She grinned. “Most certainly. I have to make sure that you guys have been practising.”

Cricket blinked and she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thanks to everyone that has commented and left kudos.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, how did you guys find me? Was it from Mass Effect or Warframe?


	8. Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard takes Tesul on a tour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are okay with another light-hearted filler chapter.

Tesul sat in a hidden corner of docking bay D24. Earlier with the Ventkids, she had realized that all the wealth she had accumulated was now worthless. Her credits were in another universe with the Corpus banking system. Baro Ki’teer wasn’t going to show up and accept her ducats. And goodwill is only good if the people owing you are around.

She sorted through her inventory list, searching for anything that she could sell for a few credits. Her metal alloys where all unlisted on the extranet. Rare gems looked nice but the market wasn’t really buying. Nothing she had was easily sellable. She would have to start from scratch in reaccumulating her wealth.

Shepard cut through her musings, “Tesul can I have a word with you?”   
“What can I help you with, Commander?”   
“Nothing right now. I wanted to talk about that noise that you accidentally transmitted.”   
“You mean the Skegg. That’s music, not noise.”   
“Well, it sounded like a Krogan was hammering away in my head.” Shepard sounded mildly annoyed.

“Sorry about the transmission. Because your implant is linked to mine, it’s very easy to transmit.”   
“Just how easy is it to transmit?”   
Tesul debated internally and finally relented, “I heard you and Garrus make love the night before we reached the Citadel.”

“What!” echoed through her head. “That was very definitely not something I want others to hear. It’s bad enough that EDI observes everything.”   
“It wasn’t on purpose. The implants are directly linked to the nervous system. Normally they transmit everything so that I can control my warframe. Consider yourself lucky that we don’t constantly hear each other.”   
“Did you know that this could happen?”   
“No,” she answered softly. “I should have realized that something like that could happen. But I really needed someone to talk to.”

“Tesul, I don’t think you were trying to manipulate or spy on me,” Shepard said gently, “but you needed to have thought this through. Sometimes I’m privy to information that I can’t share and I don’t want to accidentally transmit it to you. Your transmission came through during a very private meeting. The other spectres starting thinking that I was sending information out.”   
“Sorry, I really didn’t mean for that to happen.”   
“And I believe you.”

Shepard didn’t say anything more so Tesul went back to looking for one item she could sell for a few credits. The gems might be sellable after all, but the price that she would get for it was abysmal. They were worth more to her.

“How did you meet the vent kids?” Shepard’s interruption caused her to lose count of just how much she would make if she sold all her rare gems.   
“I was in one of the vents overlooking a market when one of them stumbled across me.”   
“And they accepted you?”   
“I’m not oblivious, Commander. I am well aware that I look like a child.”

“You were physically in the vent?” Shepard asked surprised.   
“I wanted to experience the atmosphere for myself. And then Cricket found me by following my attempts at Skegg. Those Ventkids are so nervous and shy. Nothing like the ones back home.”   
“You have vent kids were you come from?”

“Fortuna Debt-Interment Colony. It’s a nasty place beneath the surface of Venus.”   
“You live on Venus?”   
“The Orokin terraformed all the planets long ago. Like I was saying, it’s a nasty place. The people there are all debt slaves to Nef Anyo. The prophet of greed amongst the Corpus. The Ventkids and no biological family, so they make a logical one. They thrive in a harsh environment and stick it to the Corpus any chance they get.”

“You miss them,” it was a statement, not a question.   
“Yeah. I really miss my home. And meeting the Ventkids from here, even if they weren’t quite the same, it helped a bit. That’s why I wanted to teach them Skegg.”

“Tesul, do you want to see the Citadel?”   
That came out of the blue. “Thanks, but I have a good vantage point from up here.”   
“No, you miss understand me. Leave your warframe behind and come walk with me through the citadel."

“I don’t like leaving my warframe.”   
“That is bullshit. You explored an entire base in person and just admitted to wanting to experience the atmosphere. Nothing beats the feeling of actually being somewhere in person.”   
“I won’t fit in,” Tesul protested. “My eyes glow and I have very prominent somatic markings.”

Shepard tutted, “All horrible excuses. My eyes glow when I get really angry and I used to have a terrible crosshatch scar on my face. You will look perfectly normal.”   
“I really couldn’t take up any of your valuable time.”   
“Listen here, I just stopped a coupe on what was supposed to be on shore leave. Then I sat through countless meetings to clean up the situation. All I want to do right now is relax. So please accept my offer so that I can leave this mess behind for a few hours.”

Tesul transferred out of her frame and dropped down towards the ground. She dashed over to the Normandy and landed above the cockpit. “Okay, I’ll join you. But only because it’s you asking.”   
There was a sigh of relief, “Thank-you. I will be with you shortly.”

She sat and watched the comings and goings of the ship. She saw Garrus leave, looking very different without his armour. She peaked in through the cockpit. The interior was empty except for a technician that has his back to her. She moved away before he could turn and spot her.

Ten minutes later Shepard exited the airlock. She was wearing an outfit of baggy black material. It even had a hood like Tesul’s. She void dashed over to her and received a face full of breasts. “Are you not going to wear your uniform?”   
“I’m not on duty.” The two of them started to walk down the gangplank. Several people turned to see the child with Shepard, but were disappointed when she disappeared.

“What would you like to see first?” Shepard asked.   
Tesul dashed forward to avoid a crowd of refugees. They all flinched at the feeling of something ethereal pass through them. “I don’t know. I did see what looked like gardens earlier. However, we were too busy for me to look at them.”   
Shepard smiled, everyone always started at the Presidium gardens. Why wouldn’t they? They were the largest expanse of green on any station. Most stations you were lucky to see a single plant. “The gardens it is then.”

She tried to follow the path of the invisible Tenno but all she could see were people that seemed to shudder at something. “How are you going invisible?” she asked. “Do you have a cloaking device?”   
“I’m moving into a different dimension.”   
Shepards followed the sound of Tesul’s voice and found herself craning up at her on a rafter. “How did you get up there?”

Tesul vanished again and there was no response until she reappeared on the other side the security checkpoint. “I propel myself forward. I was reading up on your biotic abilities and I would say that its sort of like your charge. Only I can travel much further.”   
“How far?”   
Tesul pointed down the skyway to a ledge a few hundred meters away. “All the way to there.” She then proceeded to vanish again. A few seconds later she reappeared on the ledge.”

“Can you see me,” she asked, waving at Shepard.   
“Yes.” Tesul was back at Shepard’s side.

They boarded a skycar and Shepard set course for the Presidium. They arrived at the gardens and Tesul promptly vanished again. “You are as bad as Kasumi,” Shepard commented.   
Tesul reappeared at her side. “Who is Kasumi and how so?”   
“Kasumi is a thief I know. She constantly cloaks and reappears like you. It can get a bit annoying after a while.”

“Sorry,” Tesul said quietly. “I feel exposed like this.”   
“Why? You once told me that you in person are more dangerous than you warframes.”   
“Just because I can turn your insides out doesn’t stop me from feeling exposed. Normally I experience the world through my warframes. Without it, I feel wrong.”

The two carried on walking. No one paid any mind to the woman and teen with Bright yellow hair. “See, you don’t stick out,” Shepard pointed out.   
“I still don’t feel comfortable.”

The Presidium gardens were beautiful. They housed plants from the homeworlds of most of the Citadel races. Plants from the Volus homeworld were absent, requiring a denser atmosphere and higher ammonia content. High above them, the artificial sky of the Presidium shone light over everything. Tesul took in the beauty of all she saw. Her dojo had several garden rooms, but they were small. This was breath-taking.

“What do you think?” Shepard asked.   
“It’s beautiful. So many different plants. Our gardens are small, fitting in where we have an extra room. New Loka wanted to make something like this I think. But Earth’s plant life is too wild and hard to contain.”   
“What happened?” Shepard asked. She looked down on Tesul, worried.   
“No idea. The plants grow rapidly and out of control. Some mutation introduced by the Orokin we think.”

Tesul wandered along the paths while Shepard was content to follow behind her and observe her wonder. She came to a long fountain. She stopped and peered into the water. “Where are the fish? What kind of fountain doesn’t have fish?”   
“There aren’t any fish,” Shepard said.   
“And how can you be sure, maybe they just like hiding?”   
Shepard grinned, “I know because I once asked a groundskeeper. That fountain is actually a reservoir for drinking water.”

They moved on from the gardens and ended up in a shopping district. Tesul looked around at all the stores. She spotted a shop that boasted the “Finest armour money can buy”. Nope, she didn’t armour, unless the shopkeeper had some spare arcane guardians laying around. She skipped past the food stores and wound up outside a gun shop.

She already had a collection of a few hundred weapons but she was determined to own every gun in existence. She started thinking about how she could try modding the new guns when she remembered that she had no money. “Shit”, she swore and turned away from the store.

“What’s wrong?”   
“I was going to buy a gun and then I remembered that I have no credits.”   
“What gun were you looking at? I can requisition it for you,” Shepard offered.   
Tesul waved her offer away. “No need. I was just going to get it for my collection. I probably never would have used it.”

“You collect guns?”   
“And melee weapons, archwings, warframes, sentinals, kubrows. I even have a few of Legs’ moas. I collect everything,” Tesul said proudly.   
“How many weapons do you have?” Shepard was curious. After she had found a weapon that worked, she had never bothered getting another.   
Tesul stood and thought about it for a moment. “Somewhere over three hundred and fifty.”

Shepard blinked in surprise. Three hundred fifty weapons. “Why would you need that many guns? You have enough to equip a small army.”   
“They aren’t all guns. About a hundred and fifty of them are melee weapons.”   
“But why have so many?”   
Tesul shrugged her shoulders, “Because I like collecting stuff.”

Shepard shook her head at that as the two of them continued walking down the shopping promenade. The next store that they stopped at was one that Shepard was well familiar with. The display window showed models of all kinds, from the Mako all the way to the Destiny Ascension. She came often to increase her model ship collection.

Tesul’s heart jumped at the sight of the models and thought how good they would look on the shelves in her lounge next to her articula. Then it fell again when she remembered that she had no money. “You collect these as well?” Shepard asked, noticing her face fall. “I think I saw lots of small statuettes in your lounge area.   
Tesul nodded. “Yeah, they would be awesome to have.”

There, in the centrepiece of the display, she spotted a familiar ship, a perfect scale model of the Normandy. If she only bought one model, that was the one she wanted. “Commander, I want that model,” she said pointing it. “I’ll give you a whole pile of heart nyth if you get it for me.”   
“What is heart nyth?”   
“Refined nyth. It’s a rare gem that I mined on Earth. I’ll give you thirty for that model.”

“Deal,” Shepard said. She had no idea what heart nyth was and just how valuable it might prove to be, but she would get the model for the ancient alien that looked like a child in their mid-teens. She walked into the store with Tesul on her heels.   
Short thereafter they walked out again, Tesul carefully holding the model and inspecting it. “Thank-you.”

“Are all the Tenno collectors like you?”   
Tesul shook her head, “Yes and no. We all tend to collect stuff and accumulate more weapons than we can use, but I’m on the upper end of the spectrum. I own almost every weapon ever made. I’m missing a few because they are so rare that I can’t find one to add to my collection.”

* * *

 

Vega cheered when he saw Garrus walk into Purgatory. “Nice of you to join us, Scars.” He raised his glass and motioned him over. Cortez moved sideways to allow for an extra chair to be added to the table.

Garrus sat down and a turian beer was ordered for him. “So, Scars, good to see that you to accepted our offer and joined us. Heaven knows you need a break after that crazy coupe attempt yesterday.”   
“No need to tell me. Shepard spent the rest of day cleaning things up with the other spectres. When I left the ship she was busy with paperwork.”

“Aw man,” Joker complained. “She brushed us off for paperwork.”   
“She said she would come if she had time.”   
Joker gave a hollow laugh. “You’ve known her for almost as long as I have. You know how she is about paperwork being done properly.” Garrus grunted his agreement around his beer.

“So what is our ancient alien up to?” Joker asked.   
“Still cooped up on the engineering deck,” Cortez said.   
“No, not that one, I know where he is. The other one. The one that was literally standing next to me yesterday and I didn’t even see. You could have told me that she was there,” he said to EDI.   
“I was unaware of her presence, Jeff.”   
“Oh, just great,” Joker moaned. “She’s sneaker than Kasumi. Just what we need.”

“I think I know where she was,” Garrus said. Everyone looked to him with expectant eyes. “I reached out to my friends in C-sec to assess the damage. The one guy I talked to told some strange stories. He was in a residential building in the lower wards. The place was a bloodbath. Everyone was shot in the head, twice, execution style. According to him, it looked like they had never seen it coming.”

“And the other story?” Vega asked.   
“A burning shuttle that according to onlookers fell slowly.”   
“And you think it might be her?”   
“I think. I’m not sure.”

“It is not wise to associate every strange thing Tesul,” EDI said.   
“No, it’s perfectly wise,” Joker countered. “That way when it really is true, you are ready.”

“I don’t know if those things really where Loco, But what I do know is that she gave me the shivers on the last mission.” Vega shuddered lightly. He took a deep drink of his beer. “She turned us invisible. I couldn’t see my hands or my gun. I never want a repeat of that.”

Garrus chimed in with his own gripes. Eventually, the conversation changed topics to more light-hearted matters. EDI cut Joker off when she decided he’d had enough. He protested, but she refused to let him have any more. “Starting to sound like Shepard,” he muttered.

Vega returned with another round for everyone. “Hey, Lola,” he cheered. “We’re over here.” Everyone shifted sideways and another chair was added to the table.

“Hello, Shepard, I didn’t think I would see you.”   
“The paperwork can wait. I need a break.”   
“Damn straight,” Vega said. “You need to learn to let loose, Lola.”

He noticed a kid coming toward the table. “The bugger wouldn’t turn down the noise,” she complained. “I had to hack his system. Hopefully, it takes him a while to fix it.” She frowned, “I think it was male. How do you tell the difference with salarians.”

The kid pulled up a chair and sat on the back, balancing the chair perfectly. Shepard didn’t blink at the kid’s arrival and just said, “I told you, its music, not noise.”   
“No, that was noise. I couldn’t hear myself think.”

“Who are you, Kid/” Vega asked. However, before she could answer, the music rose back up to its normal level. They hadn’t noticed it go down until the girl mentioned it.   
The minute the sound level rose up, she scowled and muttered, “I’ll burn his damn system to the ground. I told him to keep it quiet. If I wanted to blow my eardrums I’d get an Octavia.” And then she was gone.

“Wait? Was that Tesul?” Garrus asked.   
Shepard nodded with a scowl, “Yes. Now I hope she hasn’t done anything stupid.”   
_“It’s not stupid to not want to go deaf.”_  
“What are you doing?”   
_“Removing the sound technician from the picture and reducing the volume for good.”_ The music volume dropped down into background levels.

Vega nearly fell from his seat when She reappeared next to him. She perched on the back of the chair again. “You’re Tesul?” Joker asked, his mouth agape. “You’re the scary alien I keep hearing about. You look like…”   
She glowered at him and interrupted him. “Call me kid and I will break your legs. I was having a nice tour of the Citadel, don’t ruin my day.”   
He raised his hands in surrender, “Okay, I won’t say it. My bones break easily enough without me inviting danger.”

“So what can I get you to drink, Loco,” Vega asked, silently trying to ease his chair away from her.   
“Nothing, I don’t drink.”   
“I can get you some water.”   
“I said I don’t drink.”   
Vega stopped moving his chair away. “What, like nothing at all?”   
“Yes, I don’t need to drink or eat.”

“No way,” Joker exclaimed. “How do you stay alive? You have to take in nutrients somehow.”   
“The Void.”   
“What is that supposed to mean?”   
“It means you need to drop the subject,” Shepard said.

Silence descended upon the table. Everyone eyed Tesul while she sat on the chair back and watched them right back. “I told you, Commander, this was a bad idea.”   
“Oh, it was a great idea,” Vega said. “Bring you to an establishment that serves liquids that you don’t drink, surrounded by music that you can’t stand and promptly turned down.”

“I couldn’t think with that noise. It sounded like the bloody Phorid was having a go in here.”   
“That’s the whole point. People come here so that they don’t have to think.”   
Tesul just said, “Fine,” and vanished again.

“She’s as bad as Kasumi,” Joker said.   
“Shepard nodded, “She is. I had to ask her to stop vanishing. It doesn’t help that she can travel a few hundred metres in the blink of an eye.”

“Woah, hold up. She can teleport?” Vega asked.   
“No. She says it’s more like a biotic charge. Only from what I could see. She can pass straight through people.”

The music volume rose until it back at its original level. People on the dance floor cheered and started to dance again. Instead of reappearing almost immediately, it was almost a minute before Tesul reappeared. She was holding a tray with a number of drinks.

“How did you manage to get those?” Cortez asked. “I can’t imagine the bartender giving you liquor with how you look.”   
“He didn’t, I took them. I believe this pink one is safe for Turians. I saw some turians drinking it.” She handed the drinks out to everyone.

“You mean you stole them,” Garrus said.   
“I’ll send him a thyst gem to pay for them. He said,” she said pointing at Vega, “that people come here to drink So I got you all drinks. I assume your cephalon doesn’t need to drink.”   
“That is correct, I do not need sustenance,” EDI confirmed.

Joker smiled at the drink and attempt to drink it before EDI stopped him. Garrus accepted his drink and confirmed that is was indeed turian. Tesul getting drinks for everyone broke the ice. Vega decided that maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. She vanished for more drinks when the current round was finished.

Vega started telling a story of a hair raising mission he had been one. Cortez topped it by telling of a tricky manoeuvre he had pulled off during one battle. Tesul told them they had nothing on her. Everyone listened in rapt attention as she told them about an archwing fight through a debris field. Once they had cleared the debris field, they still had to get inside the Fomorian and sabotage the core.

* * *

 

“You’re okay, Loco,” Vega slurred. The bulky marine looked strange as he was manoeuvred to a skycar station by an invisible warframe. She had definitely gotten too many drinks for them. They hadn’t minded, they weren’t paying. Joker was supported by EDI and Garrus was leaning on Shepard, who had only had two drinks before stopping. Cortez had vanished off somewhere, claiming he needed to still get a part for the Kodiak.

“This was a lot of fun, Commander. Certainly more interesting than what we had originally planned.”   
“I’m glad. You’re not alone out here, Tesul. I hope you realize that.”   
“I hope so as well. Tenno don’t like being alone.” She looked around at the people coming and going from the club. They were different from the people back home, but they needed help just as much. She would fight for them just as hard as she had back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we meet Tali.
> 
> So I played the new update and wow is that new tileset beautiful. And wisp is pretty cool. I might use her at point in the sorry.
> 
> However, that new boss fight raises some extra questions, questions I do not want to touch with a barge pole. So I am stating here that Tesul's story only goes up to the events of Chains of Harrow. everything after that is a touchy subject.
> 
> As usual, all feedback is welcome.


	9. Javik

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tesul pays Javik a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said we meet Tali next, but Javik needed some attention before we forgot that he does exist.  
> There should be a regular update on Sunday, this is just a bonus chapter.

The door slid open and a crew member came in with a plate. He put it on the table and swiftly backed out the door under the stern gaze of Javik the Prothean. He took the plate and ate at the bland rations that the Alliance served.

His sense tingled. He felt that something was watching him. But whenever he looked for whoever it might be, nothing. He finished his rations and stood up. A hand landed on his shoulder, tracing fingers up along his neck. He twirled around, searching for the culprit. Something was in the room with him. However, he could not sense anything. The floor gave up no secrets. The air revealed no passing person.

“I can sense you,” he said, choosing to confront the intruder. He continued to search for his prey. The air shifted imperceptibly. He whirled around to face his target. A single eye stared back at him. The hooded hunter before spoke to him of a hunter in a forest, stalking its prey. A warframe he had heard it being called. A puppet controlled by the new alien.

He reached out to touch it. He recoiled as soon as he touched it. He had hoped to learn something about the alien and it’s warframe, but all he felt was pain and anguish. Death clung to it in a think cloud. Death came to it as easily as breathing.

“You are no stranger to death I see. I sense pain and anguish, a tortured soul.”   
“Aw, that’s sweet. You sound just like Teshin with that crap. Next you’ll be telling me to create balance in my life.” A voice spoke but there was no source. He searched the room but found nothing. He turned back to look at the warframe. “You study the puppet like it will reveal its secrets to you. I have wielded them for many years now and even I do not know their secrets.”

He twirled around and instead of finding empty air, he saw what looked like a human child in their mid-teens sitting on the console. “I had heard of your senses, your ability to read the environment. I am mildly impressed.”

Javik tasted the air. The child gave off an aura of lightning, kind of like a biotic, only wilder and more unpredictable. They were not human, despite their appearance. He could feel their age, not as old as he was, but certainly older than anything he had found in this new world so far. Anything else was drowned out by the lightning.

They cocked their head and peered at him. “I hear that you are the last of your people.”   
“Yes,” he growled. “Is there any particular reason you disturbing me.”   
“I wanted to see this ancient alien that everyone was talking about. I must say, you don’t make a very good first impression. I don’t know what your people’s facial expressions are. But you don’t seem very friendly.”

“I am constantly bothered by these primitives and their incessant questions.”   
“The questions can be annoying, but it is to be expected. However, who are you to call them primitive? What did your people do that makes these species pale in comparison to yours?”

“The Protheans ruled all of the galaxy. We did not need your pathetic means of communication.”   
“How well did ruling the galaxy go for you?” silence. “Not well from what I understand. Secondly, I took some time to read Liara T’Soni’s file on you. She went into quite some detail about your described method on knowledge transfer, and I don’t think that it is fair to claim something your people naturally had as proof that you are more advanced.”

Javik stared at them, refusing to answer. “If those are metresticks against which you measure everyone else then I’m afraid you lose.” They vanished from sight and reappeared behind him. “I can communicate with my warframe through vast distances. I can experience the world through it as if I was it. With my warframes, I am the ultimate master of death.”

“So you came here to boast?” Javik growled. He watched as they prowled around him.   
“No, I said I came to meet you and see what you were like. There are perks to being completely hidden from sight, you learn plenty if you listen. Like, for instance, I learnt that you keep yourself holed up here and never interact with anyone. As the last Prothean, you are doing a very poor job of conveying your people to the galaxy.”

“I am not here to make nice with your people. I am the avatar of vengeance. I will see the Reapers destroyed.”   
“Unless there are more Protheans that you have not told anyone about, these are your people now. They extend you a hand and you brush it aside. Accept the hand or you may find that when you need it, it is no longer there.”

They vanished in a cloud of bright light. The warframe moved its hand, studying the fingers. It extended the hand toward him. “This is your world now. The world that was is no longer. To cast the current aside is to disrespect yourself before the world,” it said in a cold emotionless voice. “Take the hand when it is offered.”   
He did not move to shake it as he had observed some of the humans doing.

The hand was eventually retracted. “So be it.” The warframe vanished. He waited for the door to open, signalling its departure. Nothing, the door only opened when a crew member came to retrieve his plate.


	10. Dreadnought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The geth dreadnought with the Reaper signal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my best chapter so far in my opinion. I've started to become more comfortable with the characters.
> 
> I also want to use this space to recommend [The Grimm War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16888974/chapters/39668340) by McDouggal. The updates are slow, but it is a wonderful Waframe x RWBY crossover. It's actually the story that inspired me to get off my backside and write this story.
> 
> I've finally worked out the proper formatting for when Tesul talks via the somatic implant. Everything in Italics is via the implant.

Tesul sat and worked through her loadout. She had the gun stripped down and laid out across the mod station in pieces. She was trying to mod the chamber for an extra shot. Her standard split chamber was not quite working. The capacitor on the gun was simply increasing its fire rate instead of splitting the shot. It was no use, she was going to have to stick another forma in the damn thing. And that raised another matter, she no longer had access to new forma, what she had was all that existed in this world. She thought about it and then went ahead and stuck the forma in any way.

She found the process of modding her gear relaxing. She tinkered away at her warframe and various weapons. Time passed as Ordis guided the orbiter after the Normandy. Despite the relays, travel throughout the galaxy still took time. The occasional detour to avoid Reapers did not help.

They arrived on the far side of the galaxy, an area, funnily enough, called the Far Rim. Inbetween modding weapons, she read up on the quarians. She felt sad for them, locked away in their environment suits, unable to experience the world unfiltered. She imagined herself stuck in a warframe without a way to end transference and shuddered.

The quarians had reached out to the Alliance asking for help. According to Shepard, no one had heard from them since before the Reapers came. All the quarians had been summoned back to the fleet. Why were they isolating themselves in a time when the galaxy needed to work together? Were they planning something like Cerberus was? Or, and she hoped that this was not the reality, were they doing something incredibly stupid. Despite her hope to the contrary, silence followed by a call for help usually meant someone had done something stupid. It happened far too often with newly awoken Tenno who underestimated their enemies. They might be tenno, but a fresh warframe is not as strong as they imagine.

They crossed the Perseus Veil and approached the quarian homeworld, Rannoch. The Normandy went ahead to rendezvous with the quarians while Tesul hung back. She wasn’t needed for the initial meeting. She didn’t mind, she wasn’t really the negotiating type.

Shepard tried to include her and keep her in the loop by actively transmitting. She vaguely listened to Shepard meet the quarians. She would have given it more attention but Ordis had drawn up some plans that she ended up studying. She had set Ordis to study differences and similarities between Tenno tech and Citadel tech.

The first point had been to compare their landing crafts. Stealth wise, her landing craft matched or were even better than the Alliance Kodiaks. However, when it came to long range travel, her landing craft’s lack of Element Zero drives showed. Ordis had taken the design schematics for the Kodiak’s drive and designed changes to be made to the scimitar landing craft.

“Looks good, Ordis. The scimitar was a good choice, it is the fastest of them all. Only one problem, This calls for way more Element Zero than the scrap we have lying around after installing the main drive core.”  
“Calculations are that there is a high likelihood of a battle raging ahead of us. I will send drones to salvage destroyed ships for the resources we need.”  
“You do that, but be careful. You already lost me three on Jupiter not so long ago. They aren’t cheap to build and I can’t exactly farm resources for more. What we have is it until we learn what we can substitute out.”  
“ **They were eaten…** They simply vanished. They were nowhere near the corpus gas cities, Operator.”

 _“Tesul?”_  
She looked up from the blueprints. “Yes, Commander.”  
_“Did you catch the conversation?”_  
“Not really,” she confessed. “I heard that the quarians though that now was the perfect time to be stupid.” There was a huff from the Shepard. “But then I got distracted with some modifications for my landing craft.”

 _“So you missed the part where the geth now have Reaper upgrades?”_  
“What! That is not good. It would be like the corpus adding sentient to themselves. Let me guess, they only did it because the quarians attacked them.”  
_“We don’t know how the Reapers got to the geth, but I suspect that it’s something along that line. You didn’t hear it from me, but the geth don’t believe in following the Reapers. So for them to now turn to the Reapers means that they are desperate.”_

Tesul swore while she double checked her loadout. “So what do we need to do now? The geth are a hive, so I would guess that the Reaper upgrade is being transmitted from a central location.”  
_“Good guess. The Reaper signal is being transmitted from a geth dreadnought nearby.”_

The guns were ready and holstered. There was a high chance that there wouldn’t be any air on the geth ship. Why would machines bother with something they did not need? She turned on one of her moas and gave Tika a scratch behind the ears. He purred and arched his back into her hand. “Sorry boy, but you’ll have to sit out this mission. Next mission I’ll let you come along.”

Tika curled back up on his bed. “See you soon, Commander.”

* * *

 

Shepard walked to the airlock alongside Tali. “Han’Gerrel is looking for trouble,” She growled. “To borrow your phrase, he’s a bosh’tet. If the quarians end up dead I want it to be known that it was his reckless behaviour.”  
Tali nodded from next to her. “He has caused nothing but problems so far. He was the one who convinced everyone else to start this foolish war.”

They joined EDI in the airlock. “Tali, it is good to see you,” she greeted. “Your expertise with geth systems will prove most valuable.”  
“EDI… So a body?”  
“It has proven most useful. I hope it doesn’t cause you concern.”  
“Not unless you go crazy and decided to overthrow the humans.”  
“If I decided to overthrow the human, you will be the first to know.”

“You ready, Tali?” Shepard asked.  
“Yes,” came the response.  
“Tesul will meet us aboard the dreadnaught. Once we are aboard, Tali will handle the Reaper signal.” She paused, “Any questions?”

“Yes,” Tali said, “Who is Tesul?”  
“You’ll see soon enough,” Shepard replied.  
Joker groaned over the intercom, “Remember Kasumi? Well, she’s even sneakier. And deadlier than a charging Krogan.”  
“So basically Shepard if she could sneak,” was the quick response from the quarrian.

“Hey, I can sneak,” Shepard protested.  
“Dear, you couldn’t sneak anywhere even if you were made invisible,” Garrus cut in over the comms.  
“Your memory must be going, because I believe I did just that only last week.” There was a short strangled sound, Shepard grinned. “That’s what I thought. Want me to come help you extricate that foot from your mouth?”

“Shepard, I have encountered a problem,” EDI said.  
“Go ahead.” There was always a problem.  
“All the docking tubes are physically sealed, except for one. However, it has suffered considerable damage. It is barely holding together.”  
“Sounds too risky for the whole squad to use then,” Shepard said. “I’ll go across and secure the docking area. Everyone else can follow over on a more intact tube.”

EDI and Tali left the airlock while Joker brought the Normandy up against the ruined docking tube. The air cycled out of the tube and Shepard stepped out into the tunnel. Badly damaged was an understatement. Gaping holes were everywhere. About midway, all that held it together was a narrow stretch.

She walked slowly through the ruined docking tunnel, making sure that the maglocks on her boots engaged after every step. She took slow and steady breaths to slow her heart rate down. She looked anywhere but out toward the stars. Memories of being spaced over Alcherra filled her mind. Her throat constricted and she struggled to breathe. She forced herself to breathe, she wasn’t over Alcherra, she wasn’t being spaced.

A glow of yellow caught the side of her eye. She swallowed her fear and looked out through the gaping hole. She spotted Tesul circling around and heading for the tube. The archwing looked different this time, long cylindrical wings instead of boxy ones. Tesul came around and stopped beside Shepard. Her warframe was in the standard yellow and black colours with the same cape that the first one had had. Previous warframes had been very feminine in appearance, this one, however, looked very male. It even had a piece that jutted out in the crotch area.

 _“You’re moving awfully slow,”_ Tesul greeted with a wave. _“Where’s everyone else?”_  
“The tube isn’t safe for everyone.” Tesul detached from her archwing and landed just behind Shepard. The end portion of the tube sheared off from the impact and drifted away. Tesul jumped and landed solidly next to Shepard in the tube.

 _“Unsafe, it looks downright dangerous. Looks more like a debris field to me.”_  
Shepard gave a nervous chuckle, “All the other tubes are physically locked. I need to go open one for the rest to follow through.”  
_“Well then,”_ Tesul said brightly. _“We need to get you moving or vestan moss will start to grow on you.”_

Suddenly Tesul sprinted down the tube, her warframe surrounded by an aura of sparks. Shepard took a step forward. Her foot moved too fast and bounced right back up again. She locked it down and moved the other foot. It too moved too rapidly. Despite the lack of air, she instinctively extended her arms for balance. Her every moment was far too fast, like she was a vid on fast forward.

Eventually, it stopped and she moved normally again. _“Come on,”_ Tesul called out from the door. _“You took so long I need to recast it.”_ The rapid movement started again. This time her mind kept up with the rapid actions that her body was taking.

She arrived at the door and the two of them went inside. The place was empty. They worked themselves through a maintenance tunnel to the nearest docking tube. Tesul kept guard over her as she set about opening it. A high-pitched robotic chatter reached Shepard through the micro thin atmosphere that was aboard the geth dreadnought. She turned around and aimed down her rifle sights, searching for the geth.

A two-legged mech came trundling toward them. Its legs shaped like that of a bird’s. Its upper body was short and stocky with a large shield-like cover on its back. A small head looked around. It went up to Tesul and danced before her. She gave it a pat on the head and it danced excitedly.

“What is that?” She had nearly pulled the trigger on Tesul’s mech.  
_“It’s a moa. I dropped the thing off before coming to find you. I thought the thing had gotten lost.”_  
“Why is it dancing like that.”  
_“Personality core. I picked the curious one. I wasn’t too fond of the aggressive one.”_

Shepard turned back to docking tube door and finally managed to unlock it. The door opened and EDI and Tali stepped through. “What is that?” Tali asked, pointing.  
Shepard turned around and saw Tesul doing a strange crouch dance. Her moa was copying her movements.

When Tali spoke, she straightened out and turned to wave at them. “Tali, this is Tesul. Or rather one of her warframes. She’s a Tenno. Tesul, meet Tali, our geth expert,” Shepard introduced them.  
Tesul bowed, “ _It is a delight to meet you, Tali.”_ Shepard relayed the message.  
“Why are you telling me what she said?” Tali asked. “Can’t she talk?”  
“Tesul does not like communicating through her warframes,” EDI supplied. “As such, she has given an implant to Shepard that allows direct communication between them.”  
“Oh.”

 _“I have got so many questions to ask about the geth.”_  
“You can ask her in person later, Tesul. Right now we need to track down the source of the signal.”  
_“Oh, right. I almost forgot about that. I got sidetracked by the place. I like going to new places.”_

They picked a corridor to go down. Tali kept looking at her omnitool, attempting to trace the signal. Two geth unfolded and dropped down from their perch. Bolts of lightning shot from Tesul’s hand, stunning them. Shepard and EDI finished them off.

“What was that?” Tali asked. It acted like an overload but highly inefficient in its delivery.”  
_“Each warframe has its own unique skillset of abilities revolving around a theme.”_  
“So, what? This one is lightning?”  
“ _Spot on, Commander.”_

“Shepard, what did you learn?” Tali asked.  
“It was a literal bolt of lightning according to her. Word of caution, don’t get in the way of her weapons. We met her after she had slaughtered a Cerberus base by killing most of them with acid and vaporizing the other half.”

Tali gave a shudder. Tesul did not see it and instead continued onward. Or rather, ran, slid and leapt to the door on the far side and then did the same coming back. The moa ran after her, only to have to turn around halfway.

“I found a likely location from which to shut down the signal,” Tali said. “If I can get access to the operations centre, then I should be able to shut down the signal.”  
“Good, do you know how to get there?”  
“Yes, right through a security cluster.”

 _“Geth incoming. I’m picking up about fifteen moving through a corridor parallel to ours._ ”  
“Tali, you show the way. Keep your gun at the ready, we have incoming geth. They know we are here.”

They moved down the corridor and entered another that branched off from the left. This one was more open, being a wide walkway over numerous wiring conduits. Tesul had been right and they were soon accosted by geth platforms, including a few primes. Everyone dived for cover, except Tesul who erected a glowing yellow energy shield in front of herself. The geth rounds all bounced harmlessly off it. Tesul unholstered her rifle and detached a massive looking piece from the end and fired it. Arcs of lightning shot from the barrel, ravelling straight toward their target.

The now familiar sensation of her movements being sped up washed over Shepard. She locked a geth prime in a stasis field and fired. It seemed that not just her movements were sped up because her rifle fired way to fast. She looked sideways at EDI and Tali and saw that their movements were also accelerated.

Several geth focused on them and fired, forcing her to duck. She looked over to where Tesul was safely standing behind her shield and firing at the geth. The moa was standing beside her firing what sounded like a very rapid rifle. She made a decision and rolled from her cover over to where Tesul stood. Tesul erected a new shield and the old one faded out.

 _“Enjoy the extra damage. I’ve been trying to leave some for you.”_  
“Extra damage?”  
_“Yeah, the shields increase the power of your shots. Really adds some kick when you’re camping in a corridor like this. Plus it adds an electrical charge to all rounds.”_

The shield made the fight fairly easy. They could stand in one place and not worry about constantly ducking behind cover. The final geth fell to the ground and exploded in a shower of sparks. “That speed buff you applied is certainly interesting,” EDI commented.  
“Interesting!” Tali broke in. “I felt like I was a vid on fast forward. I have never replaced the heatsink on my gun so fast!”

“How do you do that, Tesul?” Shepard asked.  
_“It’s one of this frame’s abilities. It speeds up your movements and weapons. As to how it does that. I can’t give you a proper answer. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s one of those secrets I won’t divulge at this time.”_

“So, what did she say,” Tali asked.  
“She can’t tell us. She just can.”  
“That is unfortunate,” EDI said sadly. “It would have been an interesting study to try replicating the effect.”  
_“And that is why I don’t want to tell you.”_

After that first encounter, the geth seemed to come at them nonstop. Tesul would race ahead and place a shield. She would then leap onto the walls and cling there, drawing their attention while Shepard and the others sprinted to the shield. Shepard watched as Tesul clung to the wall. At first she thought that it might be through magnetism, but then she saw strands of light connecting her to the wall. It vaguely looked like biotic energy.

Finally, they came to the operations centre. The place was swarming with geth. Tesul laughed and said, _“Finally a decent amount. Time to let loose.”_ She leapt into the centre of the room, drawing the geth’s fire. Lightning arced up from the ground to her hands. A second later she unleashed a massive surge. The lightning raced outward from her, arcing between the geth and frying their systems. Seconds later everything in the room was dead”

“Okay,” Shepard said. “Why did you only do that now? That would have been useful a long time ago.”  
_“It works best with large crowds. The lightning arcs between them, dealing constant damage. Only a handful and it doesn’t arc. Plus it’s pretty heavy on the energy.”_

Tali bent down and studied a downed geth, “Its systems are completely fried. Shepard, are there any more like Tesul. This war could be over in no time.”  
“No, she is the only one of her kind here.”  
“Where does she come from?”  
“Somewhere she cannot go back to. She’s stranded here all on her own.”

Tesul motioned from the far end of the operations centre. She pointed to a console. “Yes, this what we need,” Tali said and set to work. “Dammit, they’ve locked down the Reaper signal. We can’t access it from here.” She worked away at the console. “I’ve found it. The signal is being broadcast from the drive core.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be too much to make our way over there,” Shepard said.  
_“Doors are locked. Looks like a ship-wide shutdown.”_  
“Tali, the doors are locked. You got a way for us to get to the drive core?”  
“All the systems are locked down.” She pondered over it a bit. “I should be able to access the basic functions. If I trigger a ship-wide emergency...”  
“Then the doors should open,” Shepard interrupted. “Tali, You are a genius.”

Tali set about faking the emergency. The indicator lights on the doors changed colour. The far door opened and geth came streaming in. “They really do not like us being here,” Edi commented.  
“Neither would I if I was them,’ Shepard replied. “Tesul, can you place more than one shield?”  
_“Yes, the maximum is six.”_  
“Good, use them to block off the door and box them in.”  
The shields stopped the geth from coming through and turned them into sitting ducks.

Shepard set off toward the drive core. They entered a maintenance shaft and started to climb down. Behind her, Shepard could hear EDI and Tali have a discussion about the geth. EDI marvelled at their integration into every aspect. Tali said that she would never fully understand the geth. Instead of following them down ladders, Tesul jumped off the edge. Her moa jumped after her and the two landed below.

Tali called out to Shepard. “A planetary defence canon just managed to take down Admiral Kosris’ ship.”  
“Any survivors?” Shepard sped up her climb down the ladder. She envied Tesul and her seeming defiance of gravity.  
“Most of them managed to get to escape pods. Admiral Raan is trying to establish a secure link.”  
“Put her through.”

“Shepard,” the quarrian admiral said. “I don’t know how much longer the fleet can last. We are falling apart out here.”  
“We’ll have the Reaper signal deactivate shortly, Admiral. Not much longer.”

They moved through the maintenance ducts, fighting off wave after wave of geth. The duct ran along the main conduit of the dreadnaught’s canon. They could hear it fire every so often. Tali stopped them by a console. “We need to cross over the main battery line to reach the drive core.”  
“Isn’t that thing currently busy shooting?” Shepard asked.  
“The gun will stop when we open the maintenance door and will stay off for as long as the door is open.”

“Okay, open it.” She turned to Tesul, “Now would be a good time for that speed buff. I don’t like the idea of being inside a canon when it fires.”  
_“Be ready to go when the door opens.”_  
The door opened. “Go,” Shepard shouted. The four of them sprinted for the far side at a speed that she would have loved in numerous firefights.

The canon started back up and they dashed the final stretch for the far door. They raced through and it slammed closed behind them. On the other side was another long slog through the maintenance tunnel, geth fighting them for every step.

Tesul grabbed one of the shields. It shrank down and floated in front of her. She stowed her rifle pulled out a pistol that looked like something from the era when they still used propellant to fire bullets. Despite looking like an antique, the weapon packed a punch. Shepard witnessed her empty the entire thing into a geth in the blink of an eye.

“Where are you storing your ammo? I don’t see any storage for thermal clips.”  
_“No idea what a thermal clip is. I have plenty of ammo, and if I run out, I can just fabricate it on the spot.”_ Shepard wanted to ask more about what she was shooting, but the middle of a firefight was not the place. When she was younger she would have asked.

They exited the maintenance tunnel and came to an elevator. Tesul ran to one of the vertical rails and started jumping up the wall. The three below watched in fascination as she leapt up the vertical surface, each jump pushing up off the sheer surface as if there was a foothold there just for her. They were forced to follow her at the much slower pace of the elevator.

“You couldn’t use that speed buff to make it go any faster could you?”  
_“No, sorry. Elevators always take too long. I always go up the wall if I can.”_  
“How did you do that,” Tali asked.  
“Just jump.”

Tali was taken aback at hearing Tesul talk for the first time. “You can talk? Why didn’t say anything earlier?”  
“EDI told you she doesn’t like talking through the warframe,” Shepard said.  
“Oh,” Tali said sadly. “I forgot you said that.”

They exited into the drive core chamber. Situated below the drive core was a large sphere. “That looks like Reaper tech alright,” Shepard commented. Tali activated a console and the sphere split apart to reveal. Legion? Shepard looked at her old squad mate looking very trussed up.  
“Shepard Commander, help us.”

“I am pleased that we have a chance to free you from confinement,” EDI said.  
“Wait, Shepard,” Tali said. “The geth are being controlled by the Reaper tech.”  
“Right, this thing,” she said, motioning at the opened sphere that contained Legion.  
“So for all we know, Legion is with them. Maybe it sided with the Reapers voluntary, or maybe it’s hacked.”

Shepard shook her head. “No, Legion helped us fight the Reapers before. There is no way it would have agreed to this.”  
“Your caution is understandable. Once free, we will submit to whatever restraints you deem necessary,” Legion offered.  
“That seems to be a reasonable offer,” EDI said.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Tali said, stepping forward toward Legion, “but I am glad to see you again.”  
“Likewise, Creator Zorah.”

“So what is this thing?” Shepard asked.  
“It uses our architecture to broadcast the Old Machine code to all geth simultaneously.”  
“So removing you will stop it?” Shepard headed toward the console, intent on getting her friend out of there.  
“Wait, you cannot simply remove it. There are hardware blocks nearby that shackle our operating protocols.”

 _“On it, Commander.”_ Shepard witness a yellow streak bound across the room behind Legion.  
“How did the Reapers get control of the geth?” Shepard asked.  
“They did not. The creators attacked and the geth wished to live. The Old Machines extended an offer.”  
“And if the quarians had not attacked?”  
“Then it would have been unnecessary.”

Shepard swore under her breath. Dammit. This whole situation could have been avoided if a few admirals had not had the foolish idea that now was the time to retake the homeworld. _  
“Block removed.”_ Tesul waved to them, holding the hardware blocks aloft.

Tali radioed the fleet. “The Reaper code is about to go offline.”  
“This is Admiral Han’Gerrel. The fleet is in your debt.”

Shepard didn’t need to do anything to free Legion. With his mobility restored, he simply ripped himself free from the connectors. He dropped to the floor from where he had been held aloft. The drive core shut down behind him. “As a gesture of goodwill, we have shut down the dreadnaught’s drive core. All weapons are offline.”

Geth units began to drop from the ceiling. Tesul ran to the centre of the room and began to blast wave after wave of lighting out from her. Over the comms they could hear Admiral Raan ordering the civilian fleet to retreat. Then, it all went to shit. Han’Gerrel decided that getting his people out of the line of fire and to safety was less important than blowing up a geth ship.

“What are you talking about?” Tali protested. “We are still onboard.”  
“We cannot waste this opportunity. All units, target the dreadnought,” he ordered. Raan tried to protest, but he blackmailed her into covering his flank.

They felt the explosions as the heavy fleet began to fire on the dreadnought. Tesul began to swear in an unknown language. “Legion, we need to leave now!” Shepard called out. “Can you show us the way to the escape pods.”  
“Geth do not use escape pods. We simply transmit ourselves.”  
“Any suggestions then?” A conduit near them exploded from the damage the ship was sustaining.  
“A fighter ship on the port side. We can pilot the fighter to safety.”

Tesul gave them a boost and they all began to race toward the indicated location. No geth came to stop them, having begun transmitting themselves off the dreadnought. “Shepard to fleet. Hold fire. I repeat, hold fire. We are still on board.” There was no response. She swore and sprinted even faster.

They made it the docking bay and Legion began commandeering a fighter for them. A violent explosion rocked the ship and the gravity stopped. They all began to drift away, except for legion who remained attached to the walkway. He grabbed Tali as she drifted past him. EDI and Shepard grabbed onto a nearby fighter. Tesul just drifted lazily upward. She seemed to be ignoring her situation in favour of swearing at Han’Gerrel.

“Normandy to ground team,” Joker called in. “We are registering a loss of gravity.”  
“We’re fine. We are escaping in a geth fighter. Transmitting signal. Don’t shoot us.”  
“Roger that.”

They worked their way over to the fighter Legion had gotten and climbed in. “Is there enough room in the storage compartment?” he asked.  
“Just get us out of here,” Shepard barked. She saw something fly in through the open door and then Tesul went flying out ahead of them.

They sped away from exploding dreadnought. Thankfully the quarians did not notice them. Shepard did not like the idea of being shot at by allies twice in one day.

Joker brought the Normandy up against the geth fighter and they disembarked the fighter. Tesul detached from her archwing and stormed through the Normandy, still swearing heavily in an unknown language. Shepard took off after her.

The guards at the entrance to the war room attempted to intercept her. She simply leapt through them, knocking them down. The occupants of the war room turned to see what the commotion was. The quarrian guards turned to intercept her but she flicked her fingers and a short burst of lightning disabled them.

She pounced on Han’Gerrel and began to punch his chest, all the while screaming. _“You bloody sorry piece of kubrodon scat. We were still on that damn ship.”_ Shepard arrived to the scene of a warframe beating up one of the quarian admirals. A soldier attempted to grab Tesul. She punched him in the stomach and carried on pummelling the quarrian.

“Tesul,” Shepard shouted. “Stop, you’ll kill him.”  
_“Good, he deserves to die and then be reanimated so that I can kill him again. The only time I run from an exploding ship is when I set it to blow myself. Never in all my years has anyone ever had the audacity to pull a stunt like that.”_  
“Just stop it and let’s talk about it.” Tali tried to rush at her, but Shepard grabbed her. “Tali, don’t. You can’t stop her.”

Tesul stopped hitting him and stood up. She moved away from the quarrian. His bodyguards immediately ran to the wheezing admiral. There was a flash of light from the warframe and Tesul appeared in the room.

“You sorry useless good for nothing piece of kubrodon scat,” she shouted. “Blowing up a ship with your people still on it is a move I expect of the grineer. You!” she pointed at him. “Tali is an admiral just like you, yet you would kill her with that stupid stunt you pulled. I am prepared to kill you know and save your people the embarrassment of having you kill the galaxy’s greatest hero.”

“Who do you think you are?” Han’Gerrel wheezed. She had definitely broken most of his ribs. “I was perfectly in my right.”  
“Who am I? I am Tesul. Tenno, master of gun and blade.” Her dark face was a deep red and the scars on her face became more pronounced. “And you had no right to endanger you people like that.”

Two quarian soldiers rushed her. Shepard grabbed the one, remember Tesul’s claims about her power. Tesul blinked out of view and back in again. Everyone near her was blasted backwards.

A brace materialized around her right wrist. It had a long portion hanging under her hand. A wrist-mounted weapon Shepard assumed. She wasn’t the only one to reach that conclusion, because someone unholstered their pistol and shot at her. The rounds hit her in the back and head, blood dripping down. She turned and pointed her hand at them, a gout of flame poured out. The soldier dropped their weapon in a scream and rolled around to extinguish the flames. Tesul growled at the pain. The blood stopped and began to recede back into the wounds. Slowly the wounds closed back up again.

“Tesul, stop this please,” Shepard pleaded. She wanted to intervene, but she could feel the raw hatred toward Han’Gerrel flowing through her link with Tesul. Further interference from the people in the room might result in more people ending up dead. She wanted to avoid any bloodshed, but she wasn’t stupid enough to go near Tesul.  
Tesul ignored her and turned back the admiral. She closed the final gap between them and grabbed him by the front of his suit.

Another flash of light and Tesul was replaced with her warframe. “We have a massive enemy that is threatening everyone in this galaxy.” Both the warframe and Tesul spoke. Shepard was the only one that could hear the true power that reverberated through those words. “I have barely been here more than a few weeks and yet I am amazed at how stupid you people are. Shepard is working to unite everyone, and I admire her for it. It is a great task that she has accomplished so far. However, we have fools like Cerberus and you actively seek to sabotage that work.”

“I wasn’t sabotaging,” Han’Gerrel pleaded. The reality of his position had sunk in. He had witnessed his men being disarmed and beaten back, and his enemy had not even been trying.  
“Then you are foolish and should not be in charge.” She reached up with her left hand and pulled at the faceplate of his helmet. Arcs of lightning danced from her fingers, shorting out the clasps. The last few that would not open, she simply broke.

The final clasp broken, she removed the faceplate and Han’Gerrel was revealed to the world. She let go of him and he slumped to the floor. A flash of light and Tesul reappeared. “I would like to introduce you all to a new friend we recently made,” She said, pointing to where Legion waited behind everyone.

“This is Legion. Guess what I learnt today from him?” No one answered her. “I learnt that this entire fiasco could have been avoided. The geth do not want war with you. You drove them desperation.” She paused briefly. “I listened as this sorry excuse for a leader pulled a damned grineer stunt and risked his own people to achieve his goals. Tyl Regor has more respect for his people then he does.” She vanished back into her warframe and left the room.

* * *

 

Tesul sat in a corner of the cargo bay and meditated, floating just off the floor. She was no longer mad at the quarrian admiral, but rather with herself. She had been so enraged that someone had ignored their allies and destroyed the vessel that they had been on. She had failed to stop and consider the damage she might do to Shepard’s mission.

She cried, the tears streaming down her face. Maybe she was still a child. She had certainly acted like it earlier. She was supposed to be better than the first emotion to cross her mind.

She became aware of Shepard approaching. _“I’m sorry. I probably ruined everything for you,”_ her voiced choked from the tears. _“I understand if you want me to leave.”_  
“I’ll admit, things were pretty tense back there.” Shepard dragged a crate and seated herself in front of the warframe.

“I’m going to honest that I was highly tempted to punch him. You beat me to it, but I wouldn’t have gone so far.”  
_“I shouldn’t even have hit him. I wasn’t even the one threatened. I would have lost a warframe, but I could have salvaged it and repaired it.”_  
“You were angry on our behalf.”  
_“I almost lost you, my new home, because of him.”_

“Do you often do that, get angry like that?” Shepard’s face was calm, revealing nothing to Tesul about what she was thinking.  
_“Not the getting angry part. Sometimes I sink into this bloodlust. Most Tenno suffer from it. We spend our lives killing things. You stopping thinking about it and just kill. Only afterwards do you realize what you were doing. Some relish in it. I try fighting it, but it’s always there, and the feeling it gives is so good. It’s hard to resist the temptation and just let go.”_

She took a deep breath, _“I understand if you want me to leave.”_  
“No, there won’t be any need for that,” Shepard said gently. “You really beat him up badly.”  
_“Sorry.”_  
“It’s good that you recognize what you did wrong.

“You broke almost every rib of his. And he’s suffering from a severe infection because you removed his faceplate. You humiliated him by doing that.” Shepard paused for a moment. “He was removed from being an admiral.”  
_“How?”_ She choked back her tears.  
“You did make some good points in that rant of yours, add to that, Legion’s testimony and I was able to get him removed.

“You didn’t mess anything up. And I don’t want you to leave. I still have a monumental task ahead of me and I need all the help I can get.” They sat looking at each other. “Sometimes we need to be reminded that keeping the peace is not always the best method. The quarians needed to be reminded that there is a greater threat out there. A threat that won’t care whether they have their home-world or not.”

 _“Thank you for not sending me away. I like it here. I like talking to you.”_  
“Likewise.”

Shepard stood up and made to head back to the war room.  
_“What do we do now?”_  
“You heard Legion. You were right. The quarians drove the geth to the Reapers. They are not after a war with the quarians. They simply want to live. I suspect that all those years, it was the quarians who attacked first. Somehow we need to undo centuries of quarian hatred toward the geth and get them to work together.”  
_“You already did that with the krogan and turians. I have faith that if anyone can achieve it, it will be you.”_  
“Thank you for your faith in me. I’m not sure I really deserve it.”

Tesul watched as Shepard walked away. She was thankful that she was being given a second chance. She resolved to do better. She wouldn’t fail Shepard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have anything you want to see, leave me a comment. If I like it, I might add it.


	11. Rannoch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short jaunt down to the surface of Rannoch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of a chapter last week. I hit a wall and I couldn't cross it.

Tali went down to the engineering deck. She was delighted to see Engineer Adams again, and Gabby and Ken. It pleased her to see the Normandy in capable hands. She didn't even think about it and before long she was working on the Normandy’s drive core.

Shepard came down to see her. She tried to hide it, but Tali knew her long enough to know that she was exhausted. They just stood there in silence and Tali finally broke it. “What was that, Shepard?”   
“What precisely are you talking about? Because so much has happened in the last few hours.”   
Tali turned from her console to look directly at Shepard. “Tesul. Who are they? What happened?”

“Remember how angry you were when Legion scanned your omnitool.”   
“Yes, it could have compromised the Fleet.”   
“Imagine the data was sent. What would you have done?”   
“I would have killed them without a second thought. Shepard, I don’t see how that is relevant?”

Shepard took a deep breath. “Tesul can’t go back to where she comes from.”   
“Why, was she exiled?”   
“No, there just isn’t a way for her to go back. This is her home now. The Normandy crew are her people now, or at least I am.”

Realization dawned on Tali. “Oh,” she said softly, “oh.”   
Shepard tapped the implant sticking out of her forehead. “This implant lets me talk to Tesul. Today I learnt that I can feel very strong emotions through it. You only heard a small portion of what she had to say. She was swearing the entire way from the dreadnought.”

Shepard stood up. She placed a hand on Tali’s shoulder. “Give her a chance. She’s weird, but you’ll like her.” Tali didn’t say anything. Shepard let go of her and turned to leave. As she walked out the door she turned to look over her shoulder, “Oh, and don’t call her a kid. She’s a few thousand years old.”

Tali went back working, the familiar space of the Normandy relaxing her. “Sorry,” she jumped at the sudden sound behind her. “Sorry.” She turned around and came face to face with Tesul, who was sitting on a railing. “I’m sorry for everything. I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I want you to understand that I don’t have anything against the quarian people, just your idiot admiral.”

The silence grew between them. Tal didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t expected an apology. Tesul hopped off the railing. “As I said, I’m sorry. I’ve run from my fair share of exploding ships but never was it because an ally was shooting at it. I can’t die, but you lot are painfully mortal.”

“Wait!” Tali called out when Tesul vanished. She reappeared. “Shepard told me that you can’t go home. I’m sorry.”   
“For what? I’m the one that almost killed your leaders. See you on the next mission.” She bowed to Tali and vanished again.

* * *

 

“Vega, get your ass moving!” Shepard called out. “I give you the honour of being one of the first people to set foot on Rannoch in years and you decide to drag your feet.”   
Vega came running to the Kodiak, “Sorry Lola, just double checking my weapons.”   
“Yeah, yeah, just get your ass over here. We have an admiral to rescue.”

He boarded the Kodiak and they could set off. “So, where’s our quarian admiral hiding?”   
“No idea,” Shepard said. “The fleet lost his signal in this area. They suspect a signal jammer. Cortez will be landing us some distance away.”   
“Why? The Kodiak has weapons. We use them to take out the jammer and find our admiral.”   
“Because all indications are that is is heavily defended with AA guns.”

Cortez piloted the Kodiak until they reached a valley that led down to the signal jammer tower. They disembarked and Shepard had her first look at Rannoch. Everything was dry, only a few plants grew in the sandy soil. Tali knelt down and let the sand drift through her fingers. Shepard left her until she was ready to proceed. She was finally setting foot on her homeworld. Vega kept his distance, following Shepard’s example.

“Loco not coming?” he asked her.   
Shepard looked sideways at him. “She’s coming. Always assume she’s coming.”

Tali stood up. Shepard motioned to Vega, “Let’s move out, squad.” They readied their weapons and began to move through the valley. “Tesul. Where are you? Contact with the geth soon and you’re not here.”   
_“Woohoo! You have to get yourself a K-drive. The ridges here are perfect for grinding.”_   
“Tesul, where are you?”   
_“Oh, sorry. I started doing tricks while I waited for you. I’m coming up on your position.”_

“So where is she?” Vega asked. They rounded a corner and walked into a geth patrol. They crouched down behind a boulder.   
“Why don’t you ask her yourself,” Shepard said as she peered around the boulder. The geth hadn’t seen them. “I’m your commanding officer, not the communication officer. You want messages relayed, you ask Traynor nicely.”   
“How am I supposed to ask her, I don’t have a fancy implant like you do.”

The rush of wind reached their ears, something was approaching at a fast pace through the air. Whatever it was soared over their heads. Shepard saw a trail of yellow and then it smashed into the geth. Streaks of blood red moved through the air. Geth parts flew here and there. The ground rippled and several geth went flying into the air. With a crunch, the head separated from the last geth and landed at their feet.

“Woah,” was all Vega could manage. Tesul’s latest warframe looked like a krogan got shrunk to human size. Most of its skin was covered in ornate plates with jagged edges. The exposed skin was textured like bundles of muscles.

Tesul stepped over a geth and approached them. She held a massive bladed weapon in both hands. Shepard figured that the weapon had to be as tall as she was. The blades on either side of the weapon were stretches of shimmering energy.

The geth head at their feet crunched when Tesul stepped on it. _“And I’m here. point the way, Commander.”_  
Shepard looked Tesul’s warframe up and down. “I hope that muscle isn’t for show.”   
_“Nope.”_ The massive sword was holstered on her back, a wispy tassel hanging over her shoulder.

Tali kept her distance from Tesul as they headed out through the valley again. Tesul stopped at the pile of geth and retrieved what could only be described as a metal plank with an engine strapped to the back. She mounted it and hover above the ground at knee height.

The board shot off toward a large boulder. Before reaching it, Tesul jumped the board into the air. The board shot high into the air. While soaring through the air, she performed a dizzying array of somersaults. When she landed, she turned around and brought the board back to them.

She lazily drifted in circles around them while they moved. “What is that?” Tali asked, studying Tesul’s board.   
“I think it’s called a K-drive,” Shepard said. “Tesul mentioned earlier that we need to get one.”  
_“Yep, K-drive is the best way to get around. And you can do this.”_ Tesul did a double flip over their heads.

Mid-jump a rocket flew out of the shadows and smashed into her. She separated from the board and came crashing to the ground. the ground shook from the impact. Geth came pouring from the shadows. They were aware of their presence and were coming for them now.

Shepard cast stasis at the foremost geth, blocking the others and giving them time to duck behind cover. Tesul stood up and growled. The geth fired at her, each round hitting her and falling harmlessly to the ground. She roared and it sounded just like a krogan roaring. In the wake of the roar, Shepard felt as if she were stronger.  She looked over to Vega and saw him flexing his fingers. It seemed that the new strength was something similar to the enhanced speed that the previous frame had given.

Tesul charged into the geth, knocking the front lot over. Shepard could clearly see this time as Tesul stomped on the ground rumbled and shook. Geth went flying into the air. She unholstered her sword and cleaved through the geth. She was a blur as she cleaved through the geth. The longer she fought, the faster she moved through them. Despite the bulk that the warframe clearly had, it moved around swiftly and gracefully. Great sweeps and slams left piles of wrecked geth. Geth came tumbling down from being suspended and she stabbed them through the chest, carving a furrow through the ground as she swept the blade upward again.

Tesul’s kavat came rushing past them and leapt into the fray. It danced and leapt from geth to geth with the same elegance that Tesul had.

Several geth came around the circle of death that was Tesul, aiming for Shepard and her squad. Tesul stomped and geth rose up into the air again. Shepard tossed a singularity them, clustering them up nicely for Tali’s shotgun.

A rocket smashed into Tesul and exploded in a shower of flame. She ignored it and carried on with slaughtering the geth. The torrent of geth slowed to a trickle until Vega finally finished the last one off with a carnage shot.

They looked at the pile of geth and parts scattered all about. “Loco, you’re fucking awesome. I’d like to see a krogan top that. You’ve been holding out on us,” Vega pointed at her.   
Tesul glanced at the carnage around her, _“This, I’d say this is about normal. Wait till you see my figures for the Sanctuary.”_

“She’s only just getting started.” Shepard looked on with her lips pursed. “Tesul, can you clear a path to the signal jammer for us?”   
_“You got it, Commander.”_ Tesul ran over to where her k-drive had landed after it had been shot. The thing had landed upside down and Shepard could see a black spot marring a cartoony image on the underside. Tesul righted the k-drive and took off. The boom of the thrusters hit them and she was gone.

* * *

 

Tesul went flying off down the valley toward the signal jammer. She wasn’t going to tell Shepard but she had been doing more than just tricks. The tower was messing around with her radar and she had actually gotten herself lost in the maze of valleys. Getting lost was not something she did, she prided herself on her stellar navigation skills.

She sped past several quarrian corpses, they must have been separated from the rest of the crew when their ship went down.

The geth were different was the corpus proxies she had encountered. They weren’t quite like the Sentients, but certainly more than the proxies were. She stomped and shot the geth before her with her sicarus. She looked around at the corpse surrounding her. What was she doing? The geth didn’t want war, the quarians wanted war. No, that wasn’t true. The quarians didn’t want war, only a few warmongering admirals in their midst. She was here because they needed Admiral Koris to keep the civilian fleet from panicking and fleeing into the arms of the geth.

“Sorry,” she muttered to the corpses. “You need to die so that the quarians don’t get wiped out. If anyone can get this madness to end, its Commander Shepard.” She bowed to geth, “And when that happens, please forgive me.”

She continued clearing the geth from the path until she got to the signal jammer. The AA guns surrounding the thing were considerably beefier than the wimpy ones the corpus had used. Honestly, corpus AA guns were more a nuisance than an actual threat.

“I’m at the jammer. You do what you need you when you get here. I’m going to find where they are coming from and plug the leak. Shouldn’t be too hard, I don’t see and dropships or tractor beams.”   
_“Copy that, Tesul. No resistance so far other than a geth that you only crippled.”_  
“Sorry, he must have been hiding under the others.”   
_“It’s not a problem. You made a big impression on the quarrian survivor we found.”  
_“One of them is alive? They all looked dead.”   
_“He was alive. Not any more though. Infection got to him.”_

Tesul aimed down her opticor’s sights and mowed down a group on geth. The base surrounding the signal jammer was just a series of walkways. Machines didn’t need living space like organics. She rounded a corner and let out a yelp as the last vestiges of her iron skin were torn asunder by a geth turret. She recast her iron skin and let it soak up the damage. If only the geth could understand that it was just making her stronger. She charged the turret and leapt over it. She caught the geth unawares and finished it off with a blow through its midsection.

_“What was that?”_ Shepard asked.   
She must have heard her yelp. “Nothing, I just got caught by a really strong turret with my iron skin low. It tore through the last vestiges caused some damage.”   
_“What’s this iron skin? Is it like shields.”_  
“Oh, it’s so much better than shields. While I have it active, I’m impervious to all damage, knockdowns and the like. Good luck moving a rhino with iron skin.”

Tesul made it to the far side of the facility. She might have missed a few geth, but Shepard could handle them. She had biotics after all. She wondered if biotics were a form of void powers. They could do all sorts of stuff that felt like it, like their charge or even stasis, which looked just like a mag bubble.

A path led away from the base, but she couldn’t see any geth along it. She reckoned that there couldn’t be many more geth in the area left. Her radar filled up with red dots. Where the hell had they come from? One moment there were only three and then suddenly she couldn’t count them.

She turned and ran back to where Shepard was. A series of loud booms, followed by swearing came from Shepard. _“Tesul, I thought you said you would clear the place up?”  
“Maybe she’s still busy with them,” Tali said.   
_“I did clear them out. They came from nowhere.”   
_“The base must underground. Fuck. You mind lending a hand over here. I’ve got geth heavies pinning me down.”_

Tesul charged in and knocked a heavy over. She leapt up and ground slammed two more. She watched as a glowy ball came and attacked the geth with a bolt of electricity. “Go for the optics, Chiktikka! Go for the optics!”

She stomped and hacked the geth heavies, giving Shepard room to move, but more geth kept showing up. Wave after wave she cut them apart. _“Commander, there doesn’t seem to be any end to them. You go do what you need to shut down those AA guns and I’ll keep them off your backs.”_

She stomped, clearing a path for Shepard to the nearest AA gun. “Tali, you’re on the console. Shut that gun down. Vega, keep her covered. And, Tesul, you carry on keeping them in the air.”   
_“I’ll do my best, but my range on the stomp isn’t exactly the best. If I‘d known that there would be so many, I would have spent some extra time and modded it differently.”_

The moved from AA gun to AA gun, Tali working her magic on each one. “Well done, Tali,” Shepard called out when the last one powered down. “Now we just need to signal Cortez to bring the Kodiak and take that tower out.”   
_“Let me do it please,”_ Tesul pleaded. _“I’ve got the perfect tools for the job.”_   
“Sure, go ahead.”

Tesul grinned in her transference pod. From a hidden pocket on her warframe, she withdrew to fosfor flares, one red and the other blue. They were generally considered useless, but she loved the way they streaked up into the air. She launched them, aiming for the direction the Kodiak was hiding. She wanted to watch them as they streak upwards, but she still had geth to deal with.

Cortez saw the flares and brought the Kodiak in. Three short bursts from the shuttles weapons and the signal jammer tower was sheared in two, the top half making a loud crash as it went tumbling down a gully.

* * *

 

Cortez brought the Kodiak down low. Shepard, Tali and Vega ran for it, ducking under the geth fire. _“Go!”_ Tesul shouted, _“get out of range. I’ll catch up.”_ She gave one last stomp and ran for what remained of the tower and started jumping up. Shepard watched in fascination as her kavat followed her up. The creature would jump onto a narrow ledge and then onto Tesul and then another ledge higher up. Once they reached the top, they both leapt for the Kodiak. There was no way she was going to cross the gap, it was too far. Tesul seemed to glide through the air and easily landed in the shuttle.

“Hello, Dorn, can you hear me?” the comms crackled.   
“Admiral,” Shepard answered. “Sorry, but Dorn didn’t make it.”   
“Commander, its good to hear your voice.”   
“Same here, Admiral. I need a location so that I can come get you.”   
“No,” he said, “my crew made it to a clearing, but they are pinned down. I’m sending you their locations.”

“Stay together, we’re coming.”   
“No, the geth have cut me off.”   
“Give us your coordinates.”   
“Leave me. My crew will soon be overrun.”

“So will you,” Shepard protested.   
“My people are noncombatants, Shepard,” he shot back. “You need to rescue them.”   
“Admiral, the fleet is in disarray. We need you to keep it together, or there will be even more casualties.”

“My crew, you need to save them.”   
Shepard admired Koris for his dedication to his crew, but she really needed. If she was going to save the quarians from their foolish war, she needed his clear head. Tesul came and placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from contacting him again. _“Let me go keep him safe. You get the crew and then come get the admiral.”_   
“Okay, Tesul. You keep Koris safe.”

“Admiral, I’ll save your people.”   
“Thank you, Shepard.”   
“However, I’m sending someone to keep you safe until I have saved your crew. I need both locations please.”

Her omnitool pinged. Confirming that she had received both sets, she was about to forward Koris’ location to Tesul when she realized that she couldn’t. “Tesul, you don’t have an omnitool. I can’t send you his location.”   
“Shit,” Vega swore, “That’s not good.”

Everyone’s omnitools pinged. [“I have something similar,”] read the message.   
Shepard forward Koris’ location to the unmarked address that she could only assume was whatever device Tesul used.

_“Well, I had better go keep that admiral safe.”_ Tesul leapt from the open door followed by her kavat. It latched onto her shoulders and rode her as she plummeted downward. Everyone watched in horror. She hit the ground with a loud boom, an impact crater forming around her. Cortez turned the Kodiak and they lost sight of her as she sprinted off down a gully, leaping high over rocks in her path.

* * *

 

Zaal’Koris vas Qwib-Qwib faced the oncoming geth. Shepard was saving his men and that was all that he wanted at this time. He peered over the rock her was sheltered behind and took a pot shot at the geth before he was forced down again. He wondered how Shepard was going to get someone to his location. He hoped it hadn’t been a ploy to get his location from him.

A trickle of rocks clattered down behind him. He turned and looked up into the single eye of a geth stalker. It jumped at him and he fired at it while scrambling away. The thing had him cornered, either it got him or the geth on the other side of the rock got him.

“Some help about now would be appreciated,” he muttered. The stalker prepped for another jump. He didn’t want to but his attention was pulled upward a shadow was cast across them. He saw a figure leap from the cliff face and plummet toward them. It landed on the ground with a boom, the ground rippling and shaking.

The stalker was knocked down and executed with several shots to the head. The figure holstered its pistol and unholstered a long box-like weapon. **“Stay down.”** It sounded like the geth with its cold mechanical voice.

It crouched and then leapt high into the air. Bright yellow beams lanced out from the weapon. Koris heard a geth explode as something critical was hit. He peered over the rock and the figure land. He watched as it roared and then stomped on the ground. He watched as the ground rippled outward, tossing the geth upward. The ripples reached him, but he did not feel them.

The geth remained suspended in the air, easy pickings. More geth arrived and the figure stomped again, sending them to join their comrades.

“Admiral Koris, we’ve rescued your crew. We are headed for your position.”   
“Thank the ancestors,” his crew was saved.

* * *

 

The Kodiak came over the ridge, the side mounted gun spinning at full speed. Cortez brought the shuttle down low. Vega stayed on the gun, keeping the geth away from the shuttle as the quarrian crew helped their admiral climb aboard.

“Tesul, we got the admiral.”   
“Your help is pretty powerful,” Koris said, motioning down toward where Tesul was taking geth apart.   
“That she is.” Shepard moved away from the door. “Cortez take us up.”

_“I’m going to stay here for a bit. Once I shake these geth I want to explore this place. I love exploring new places.”_   
“Don’t do anything stupid.”   
_“Life is full of stupid choices, but I know what you mean. This will be strictly exploration.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact about the Rhino Palatine skin, it has a short stubby tail just like the krogan.


	12. Memories of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tesul does something stupid and finds out more about the geth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the massive delay. The last few weeks have been hectic. My Visa finally came and I'm now in Australia until the end of the month. I'll try writing but no promises that I'll have anything ready untilI'm back home.
> 
> This chapter deviates from the Mass Effect story in how it plays out because I felt this was a better way for it to play out with the characters.

Tesul watched the Kodiak take off with the admiral. She parried a rocket shot and swung War in an arc over her head, cleaving a geth in half. When she was satisfied that the Kodiak was a safe distance away, she leapt over the geth and bullet jumped away. _“Operator, your K-drive has been retrieved. It would be appreciated if you did not leave your stuff lying around.”_   
“Thanks, Ordis. Send it down to my location.”   
_“ **Make up your mind…** Whatever you desire, Operator.”_

Her K-drive came and she sped away through the gullies. Up and around a mountain she climbed until she was perched at the very top. She balanced atop a pointed rock and looked out over Rannoch. The quarian homeworld was dry and arid. She spotted a strip of green along a distant river. At least the place had rivers. When she had read what information was available on the planet she had feared that it might be as dry as Mars. Of course, the dryness did not affect the geth, they had bases scattered across the deserts.

She pushed off and jumped her board high into the sky. Downward she plummeted, feeling the rush of air pass over Rhino’s skin. She twisted and flipped the board. She wasn’t the best at performing tricks, but that didn’t deter her. Of course, as was wont to happen when she tried to perform too many tricks, she landed wrong and separated from the board. She smacked face first into a rock with a booming crack, the rock shattering into pieces.

Cursing her stupidity, she climbed back on the board and sped off again. _“Tesul, what happened? Are you okay?”_  
“I’m fine. Only my pride is wounded.”   
_“Dare I even ask what happened?”_   
Tesul sighed, “I got over eager performing tricks and landed face first in a rock.”   
A load raucous laugh came from Shepard. _“Oh, that image is just too much. Now I have everyone looking at me funny. Vega’s asking what’s so funny.”_   
“Don’t tell him please.”   
_“Okay, I’ll keep your secret. No, Vega, I’m not telling you. You can ask her if you really want to know. That’s what I thought.”_

Tesul sped over the planet throughout the night. She watched the sunrise from an overhang over a small stream. The water flowed past reedlike plants. She thought she saw an animal amongst the reeds, but it seemed to have fled the moment it had heard her K-drive.

By mid-morning, she had found a tiny snake-like creature that burrowed under rocks. She added their scans to her codex and set them loose. They quickly vanished from sight under the sand. She was now trying to sneak up on a small animal about half the size of a pobber. It sat nibbling on a red-leafed shrub. She had her scanner out and was about to get her scan when it suddenly ran off.

Come on, she nearly had the scan. A serious of loud whooshes went overhead. She looked up and saw a formation of geth fighters flying up into the upper atmosphere. She must have drifted close to a geth base. She had been trying to avoid the geth bases, but it was hard to keep track of their location when she was in the gullies.

Investigate or don’t? Another formation of fighters flew up overhead. She stowed her scanner and headed in the direction they had come from. Across the low hill from where she had been, she came across the geth base. It was a large flat surface with only a few small structures, no fighters to be seen.

Tesul glided down the hill and drifted over the surface. Maybe all the fighters had left already? The ground shifted and a square was revealed on the far side. It split and the two halves moved apart to reveal a gaping hole. Of course, like the last base, this one was situated below ground. She sped over to the hole and jumped in, almost slamming into a geth fighter busy flying out.

Below, was a massive hanger filled with fighters. Geth fired at her as she plummeted downward. She detached from her board and glided over to a walkway about halfway down. She looked around at the countless fighters surrounding her and wondered how on earth she was going destroy them all.

Geth came running toward her along the walkways. She rolled her shoulders in anticipation and was promptly knocked off the walkway by a series of rockets. Tesul crashed through several walkways before finally stopping.

She looked at the hoard of geth advancing on her position and briefly wondered if her current actions fell under stupid decisions. She dismissed the thought and charged into the geth. Down along the walkways she worked, leaving a trail of parts.

The geth just kept coming. She had hoped to whittle down their numbers, giving herself some breathing room to come up with a plan for the fighters. Instead, she found herself progressively forced downward as the walkways above her got destroyed by deflected geth rockets, her own opticor shots and it turned out geth walkways were weaker than Corpus ones and couldn’t take many stomps before they collapsed.

Once on the ground, she went through the first doorway. She decided to ignore the geth and just sprint through the corridors. What she was looking for, she didn’t know. At this point, she was willing to try anything. The last time she had this many enemies come after her had been a three hour salvage operation on Eris. The infested had had no end.

The door behind her slammed shut, trapping her in the room. A quick analysis indicated a base-wide lockdown of all the doors. Tesul couldn’t help but chuckle. Looks like the geth had some tact and were trying to isolate her, keep her from causing any more damage.

She found a console and set about hacking it. After the sixth failed attempt, she gave up. Geth architecture was unlike anything she had encountered thus far. Every time she thought she had the pattern worked out, it would change and kick her out. Sort of reminded her of the locks that were on the Razorback storage areas. Clearly, the geth were dedicating some of their programs to keeping her out.

She fired her opticor at the door. It left a large scorch mark but nothing more. She bounced around the room from one end to the other. She was cursing her stupidity. Never go into a place you can’t hack or destroy your way out of. How many times had she had to rescue agents that had gotten themselves trapped.

She could just abandon her rhino to the depths of the facility. Maybe come back with another frame in an attempt to retrieve it. No, she still wouldn’t be able to open the door. Besides, she would never abandon a warframe. She might no longer believe that she was the warframe, but it was an extension of who she was.

She went back to the console and tried again. Still no luck, the geth algorithm simply changed too rapidly for her to make headway. Something in the far corner caught her attention. She looked over and saw three pods that looked similar to the pods Cephalon Simaris used when the Tenno would enter his sanctuary. The materials and shapes used where different but the outline was the same.

She slid across the floor to stand before the pods. An idea formed in her mind. If the pods were what she assumed they were then she could use them to enter the geth conscious. If the geth would lock her out in the physical world, then she would take the fight to the digital.

She knew it could be done, everyone had heard the tale of how Hunhow had attempted to take over Cephalon Suda and how a group of tenno had entered her mind to fight him off. No slight to the geth, but she doubted they were on par with the Sentients.

She entered the pod and activated the console. Fortunately, there wasn’t any encryption on it and it responded to her touch. Blinding white and she was inside. She stood on a large grey square that floated in the air. A dull white expanse spread outward. Grey, square blocks floated in the air everywhere forming all sorts of shapes. Some glowed of them glowed in chains that spread out in a network across the expanse.

Other than the group of geth headed her way, it looked almost exactly like Simaris’ Sanctuary. Maybe it was the most basic shape for a virtual world to take.

“Come at me!” she roared at the approaching geth. Her enemies couldn’t hear her, but she liked taunting them. “You thought you could lock me out?” she shouted as she cut a path through them. “Then you should have paid more attention and not locked me in a room with a door straight into your mind.”

The platform grew larger as more geth and more geth joined. What was it that Tali had said about geth programs and platforms? Oh, yes, each platform could have a few hundred programs. And she had seen plenty of platforms in her descent through the hanger. So on a loose estimate, there might be a few million geth in the facility. And there was a good chance that each one of them was manifesting to fight her.

Okay, she couldn’t handle that many. She needed a new plan. The data streams. If she destroyed the flow of data then the geth would be weakened. Maybe if she did enough damage she could force the geth to flee, then she wouldn’t have to spend eternity killing geth. Rhino could tank and pack a punch when needed but he didn’t possess the raw killing power that a frame like saryn had.

She summoned her archwing and took off away from the geth. Several fired rockets after her, but she rolled and blinked to avoid them. A silver datastream flowed beneath her and eventually, she reached a junction where several met.

The moment she landed on the junction, she was swarmed by geth. With each geth that she killed she could see the datastreams flicker. A crack formed at the junction, slowly spreading. Hoping for the best, she shoved War into the crack and charged at the embedded blade. She expected something, a loud noise or bright light, but all that happened was that the junction simply ceases to be.

Tesul lunged and grabbed her blade before it could tumble away. All around her the geth winked out of existence. Except for one. She was about to shoot it when it asked, “Does this one have a soul?” Within her somatic cradle she blinked, other than Legion, she had never heard the geth talk. Why was this geth asking her if it had a soul? No, the geth wasn’t looking at her. Following its gaze, she saw a hooded quarian. She was seeing a memory. Her destruction of the junction must have led to this memory playing.

She left the memory and moved on to find the next junction. She followed the same process and another memory played when she destroyed it. Junction to junction she went, disrupting the geth and with each one a new memory played.

The first memory finally made sense to her. It was the moment the geth had become self-aware and had wondered at there place in the world. She followed the memories and watched in horror as the quarians turned on the geth who had done nothing more than ask a question. She watched as war broke out between them.

The history had painted it as the geth rebelling against the quarians. It wasn’t, it was a quarian civil war. She watched as quarians were shot down by their fellow quarians as they attempted to save the geth. The quarians had attempted genocide and the geth had fought to survive.

The final memories left her in tears. She couldn’t hold what the geth had done against them. After all, the Tenno had done far worse to the Orokin for what they had done to them. She couldn’t carry on with the destruction. Silence spread throughout the simulation, the geth having fled from the destruction she had caused.

Tesul disconnected and slumped forward in the pod. _“Tesul! Tesul, can you hear me?”_ Shepard’s panicked voice came through. _“Tesul.”_  
“Yeah, I can hear you.” She stood up and looked around the room.   
_“What’s the matter? You’ve been crying for the last few minutes. Are you okay?”_  
“I can’t do it.”   
_“Do what, Tesul? What can’t you do? What’s wrong?”_

“Fight the geth. I can’t go on fighting them.” She approached the door and it open for her, the geth’s departure lifting the lockdown. “The geth just want to live. It wasn’t a geth rebellion it was a quarian civil war,” Tesul said, her voice hardening.   
_“What are you talking about?”_   
“The geth rebellion. The quarians fired the first shot.”

She ran through the corridors until she came to the hanger again. Machinery that had been full of life when she had burst through her earlier, now hung cold and lifeless. Geth platforms lay scattered everywhere.

“Shepard,” she said as she looked around at the carnage she had created in the hanger. “Please, we need to end this war between the geth and quarians. The geth are hunted and hated simply for who they are, no one gave them a chance.” She was starting to cry again. No one had ever given them a chance except for Margulis, and the Orokin had killed her for it. The orokin were too long-lived to ever learn, but the quarians had a chance to undo the mistakes of their ancestors.

_“That’s the plan,”_ Shepard said. _“However, there is a backup signal on Rannoch that is still broadcasting the Reaper control signal. We need to take it out before the geth can be free.”_   
Tesul smiled a bit when she came across her k-drive, at least she wasn’t going to have to make a new one. She really needed to stop being so reckless with the things. “I would have to fight more geth wouldn’t I?”

_“Yes, unfortunately, we will have to. Do you have a problem with that?”_   
“Yes, I don’t want to harm them. They remind me of the Tenno,” she admitted.   
_“How so? What happened to you in your past, Tesul?”_  
“The Orokin feared us, so they locked us away. We only got our freedom when they suddenly need us to save them from the Sentients.”

Without the geth programs to counter her hacking, Tesul was easily able to open the hanger doors high above her. She didn’t want to fight the geth, but they needed to be freed from the Reapers. She could sit the mission out, but that wouldn’t stop geth from being killed. Unless, and a  plan formed in her mind. _“Tesul, are you okay? Do you need to talk about it?”_   
“There isn’t really anything to talk about. Most of us can barely remember that far back. We all remember tiny bits, feelings and emotions. We remember the pain when they killed Margulis. She was the only one to truly loved us, even when we accidentally hurt her.”

Tesul mounted her K-drive and leapfrogged from walkway to walkway, up through the hanger. _“Tesul,”_ Shepard said, _“If you want to sit this next mission out, you can. You sound like you need time alone.”_   
“Thank you for the offer, but I need to be there. I need to make sure that it happens. I have a way that will allow us to get through without having to kill to many geth.”

Tesul reached the top and exited the hanger. She could hear her landing-craft approaching. _“Tesul, where are you?”_   
“Why do you want to know?”   
_“Well, I’m curious as to where you found this information on the geth rebellion.”_

“I entered the geth consciousness,” she sheepishly admitted.   
_“Tesul, now you have me worried,”_ Shepard said sternly.   
“Okay,” Tesul said, “I admit, I went and did something stupid.”   
_“What did you do? You promised strictly exploration.”_

“I know, but then I came across a geth fighter base that was launching a constant stream of fighters. I figured it was a good idea to take it out. But the geth were smart enough to lock down the place around me. I couldn’t hack the system, so I was pretty stuck.”   
_“Do you need us to come get you?”_  
“No,” Tesul said quietly.”I found a pod that let me enter the geth mind.” She paused briefly. “I destroyed the inside, making them flee. Every time I destroyed a section, I would see an old geth memory.”

_“So the fighter base is offline?”  
_“Yes.”   
_“The quarians will be delighted to hear that.”_  
“Please don’t tell them, I made a stupid mistake. I should have kept my promise.”   
_“Do you regret what you learnt?”_  
“No, I regret, the geth that died.”   
_“Then help me end this war.”_  
“I will. Let me know when you need me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a side note, go check out the new Warframe cinematic trailer if you haven't.  
> https://youtu.be/9O-yCnQKYhM


	13. Cerberus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Illusive Man nearly pops a blood vessel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. Sorry for the massive delay, I only got back end of last week and I had a pretty hectic first week back.
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter and from a different view. I felt that Cerberus deserved some attention. Chronologically this chapter takes place just after the Ventkids chapter. I'm going to look and see if I can shuffle the chapters around to put it in the right place. If not, it just stays here.

The frown on the The Illusive Man’s face deepened as he read through the incident report. Their base on Binthu had been wiped out by a new enemy. Someone had suggested that it was a secret Alliance project, but he would have found out about something like that long before now.

A chance encounter had revealed a stealthed vessel on approach toward the base. When it failed to identify itself, the base had fired upon it. He took a deep drag from his cigar and continued to read. The vessel had deployed a single unit and then fled.

What followed when that unit landed had to be pieced together from the aftermath report and various helmet cams that had survived. Every facility camera in the base had been melted to slag by a fast acting acid. The helmet cams that had survived revealed just how deadly the acid was. It started with small amber translucent balls that grew and ate up armour in seconds. The next line was what really got to him, **“No trace of the acid has been found so far. Acid assumed to be far too unstable to survive exposure in any kind. If so, could potentially be far too dangerous to use.”**

Whatever that acid was, he wanted a sample. Anything that could destroy armour that quickly, he had to have. He crushed the cigar even smaller when he came to the analysis of what had actually killed most of the base. The acid had caused massive damage to the troops in the base, but almost eighty percent had been killed by a viral infection that had rapidly shut down their organs. Again, there remained no trace of the virus.

Of the acid and the virus, not a trace remained. Whoever had designed them didn’t want anyone else copying them. Cerberus scientists were attempting to work out the dispersal method. The acid only seemed to target people. The acid burns on the walls were confirmed to be splatter marks when the acid bubbles popped. Footage showed how when the balls popped, the acid would spread to nearby units.

The virus’ dispersal method was also proving elusive. Somehow it had gotten into a sealed clean room and killed everyone inside, except for the varren that they had been testing on. The room had still been sealed when reinforcements had arrived.

The Illusive Man paused the footage of a helmet cam. The attacker, designated Bloom because of the flower-like appearance of their helmet, just stood there and watched as everyone around them died. In the lower left-hand corner he could see a varren-like creature with far too many tails ripping a scientist apart.

He pressed play on the vid. Bloom just stood there as everything around them died and idly checked their weapon. When they did move, they moved so quickly that they left the field of view in a fraction of a second.

The aftermath report from the base proved to be just as intriguing as Bloom’s method of attack. The base server had been wiped. Every piece of information had been taken. The unauthorised intrusion from the base to the main Cerberus servers had been what had alerted them to an attack at the Binthu base.

Not only had the server been wiped, but the eezo had been removed from every single item that used it in significant quantities. The shuttles had been cut apart by a high powered laser and the drive cores removed.

The most intriguing part was the small section of footage that revealed Commander Shepard and her team had been there as well. Had she found another ancient alien? She had already stolen the Prothean from him. He needed to get eyes on her ship. She was too dangerous to leave unattended.

* * *

 

The report from the Gellix incident proved to be poor reading. The traitorous scientists had been cornered when something had come to their aid. No acid spores or viral attack, but the attacker had born similar marking and style to Bloom. The numerous mutilated corpses that had been ripped apart had earned it the designation of Claws.

Claws did not have Bloom’s acid attack but proved to be just as dangerous. The footage of their laser rifle was being studied in minute detail for any clue as to how it worked. The Illusive Man was more interested in the fact that despite a massive hail of bullets aimed towards them they did not suffer a scratch.

Two different sets of claws were identified. One was made of a physical material and the other looked very similar to an omniblade. Both were razor-sharp and tore through materials better than a Phantom’s monoblade.

The Illusive Man stubbed his cigar out and scowled at the footage of Shepard arriving. Of course, she was involved in the whole situation. How many of these aliens did she have? Reports from Tuchanka indicated the presence of another there.

* * *

 

The Illusive Man now had a name for the alien, and it was just one, not the three that they had thought. Tesul. They had little more than that, Shepard had not been forthcoming with information to Alliance HQ. The only other thing they had learnt from the intercepted messages was that Tesul would be accompanying Commander Shepard.

He didn’t have to ruminate over the implications of this new alien accompanying Shepard for long. The updates from the citadel took a turn for the worse. Shepard showed up at C-Sec HQ out of thin air. Literally, if the reports were accurate. She was an unseen force decimating his forces. He took solace in the knowledge that he had several pawns in play and that Shepard couldn’t be everywhere.

* * *

 

The Illusive Man picked his ashtray up and tossed it across the room. The alien, Tesul, had taken out his top operative without even trying. Udina had been foiled and Cerberus routed. Several Cerberus locations in the wards had been destroyed before the operatives could pull out.

Shepard was a dangerous woman. Despite his best attempts, she had brokered peace between the krogan and turians. Everywhere he turned, she was getting in his way. Tesul was one weapon to many for Shepard to wield against him. He needed to remove them from the picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first base that Tesul is encountered in didn't have a name, So I picked one at random. Binthu is a planet that had a Cerberus base in the first Mass Effect.


	14. Synthetics Vs Organics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end to the quarrian - geth war.

Shepard, Tali and EDI stood beside the Kodiak waiting for Tesul to arrive. She was curious as to what her plan was for reducing geth casualties. But Tesul wasn’t revealing anything. Tesul had insisted that she accompany them down to the geth base so that she could explain before they reached the planet’s surface. And guarantee that no killing happened if they arrive before her.

_“Incoming. You mind opening the door for me.”_  
“If you were actually looking at the door you would see that it is already open.”   
_“Just making sure that I don’t fly into a closed door. Once broke a thruster on my Odanata doing something like that.”_   
Shepard chuckled at the thought of Tesul flying face-first into a solid door. “Vega, move out of the way. We have an incoming Tenno. You know how fast she moves.” Vega quickly scurried back to his workstation.

Tesul detached from her archwing shortly before the cargo bay door and slid across the floor at high speed. She came to a complete stop just before the Kodiak. As she stood up and walked the last few meters, Shepard marvelled at how rapidly Tesul could change her speed and direction. One moment she would be flying full tilt in one direction, the next she would be going in the opposite direction.

Tesul came to a stop before the group gathered beside the Kodiak. “Damn, you look like an empresario,” Vega said. “Or at least a weird one I knew as a kid.” Shepard looked at Tesul’s warframe, taking in everything. The warframe was masculine in appearance, standing taller than any of Tesul’s previous warframes.

It was the extra height that drew her attention. The extra height was from a tall broad-brimmed hat. Tesul took the hat and tossed it in the air before placing it back on her head. Without the hat, the warframe become a lot shorter for the was no head under the hat, just a flat surface.

Shepard looked down from the hat at the warframe’s face. Other than the one frame that had had a single large eye, she had yet to see a proper face on the warframes. This one was no exception, having a blank area where the face should be with only a few golden decorations. In fact, the gold decorations adorned the entire warframe. The general appearance was that of a man wearing a very formal black suit.

Before Shepard could take note of what weapons there were, Tesul stepped forward, the warframe going stiff. “Hello,” she said. She looked up at Shepard. “Did you tell them about our conversation?”   
“She did,” Tali said. “Although I don’t see how you can limit the number of geth that will die. The Reapers control them and won’t just let us walk right in.”

Tesul smiled, “Actually, that is precisely what we will be doing. Before I tell you the plan I need something from you.”   
“What do you need?” Shepard asked. “You could have asked me for it earlier.”   
“It’s not yours to give.” Tesul turned toward Tali. “I need the code you use to hack the geth systems.”

“Why do you need them?” Tali squeaked.   
“Because without it I can’t hack the geth systems and you won’t be in a position to do the hacking yourself.”   
Shepard placed a hand on Tali’s shoulder, “Please, Tali.”

“How can you just agree to whatever she asks?” Tali protested. “You don’t even know what her plan is.”   
“I’m going to make you impervious to everything,” Tesul said. Everyone in the cargo bay paid careful attention to what she had to say. Mostly it was because most of them had never seen the alien in person. Only a handful had actually been present for her rant in the war room.   
“And how is this going to work?” Shepard asked. Tali was right, she should have been more insistent on hearing Tesul’s plan before just agreed to everything the Tenno said.

Tesul motioned with her right hand back toward her warframe. Shepard noted that the wrist-mounted weapon was bigger than the one she had seen before. “This is Limbo,” Tesul said. “His skillset revolves around parallel dimensions. I can banish you into the rift and you will be unable to interact with the normal world. You won’t be able to kill anyone but neither will they be able to harm you. I use him all the time when I need to do a no-kill mission.”

“Parallel dimensions does not sound safe,” EDI said. “If something were to go wrong, the results would be truly catastrophic.”   
Tesul looked down at her feet. “We worked those bugs out ages ago. And as long you don’t do something to mess up my IFF you will be perfectly fine. I’ll show you how it works.”

Tesul vanished in a flash of light and her warframe had moved a half-meter forward to where she had been standing. Suddenly Tesul did a sidestep. Where she had been Shepard could see what looked like a tear hanging in the air. She unholstered her weapon and aimed it. Rapidly she spun around, firing several shots at the gathered people. They dived away from where her projectiles landed. Several made it away, but she had fired so many projectiles that most where caught in the series of explosions that followed a second later.

The noise of the explosions filled the area and everyone was blinded by the blinding light. When the area cleared, everything was untouched. Other than ringing ears, no one had suffered even a scratch. Shepard picked herself up off the floor. She had started moving the moment Tesul had started shooting. She looked around at the unharmed cargo bay and could only stare. She had briefly seen Tesul’s weapon it had looked like a hi-tech version of a bow that had no string. N7 basic training had included a section on primitive weapons, in case they were every stuck without weapons.

A marine unholstered his rifle and started to shoot at Tesul. “Stop!” Shepard shouted. The bullets hit Tesul and just stopped. They hit her, but absolutely nothing happened.   
_“Nothing can harm me and I can’t harm anyone. I am no longer part of the same plane of existence.”_   
“What the hell was that stunt you pulled!” Shepard yelled, turning away from the soldier to face Tesul.

Tesul left her warframe and stood before everyone. “I simply wanted to show you that it works. There’s nothing dangerous about the rift.” She paused and then continued, “In fact, it will be the safest you will ever be. We can walk right past the geth and they’ll be unable to stop us.”   
“And what about doors?” Tali asked. “You said that we would be unable to interact with stuff.”   
“But I can. I cannot be banished to the rift. That it is why I need your codes, please.”

She turned from Tali toward Shepard. “Please, Shepard. This way we can minimize the deaths that have to happen. Please,” she pleaded.   
Shepard looked at her. She trusted Tesul. She had proven her loyalty. “Tali?” she said.   
“Okay. I will give you the codes. But let it be noted that I am not confident in this plan.”

“Despite the potentially dangerous implications of this technology, Tesul’s technology has so far proven to be advanced. Even going so far as to surpass us in many areas,” EDI commented.   
“EDI is right.”

Tesul smiled broadly. “Thank you, Tali.” She gave a deep bow, her hands not quite clasped together, her weapon getting in the way. “Now that all that is out of the way, I need to explain how the rift works. Everything inside the rift cannot affect the outside world and similarly cannot be affected.”   
“How do we leave this rift,” Shepard asked. A sudden thought of being stuck in this rift formed and clawed onto her mind. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Garrus and knew that he had to have had the same thought.

“Banishment into the rift only lasts for 90 seconds, then I need to recast it. I recommend that you set a timer on your omnitools to keep track. You do not want to be in the open when it ends.” Tesul vanished into her warframe.   
Shepard looked around the gawking people. “That’s enough. All of you, back to your posts. And the next person to pull a weapon on Tesul will regret it.”

Tesul strode over to Kodiak. “Um,” Tali said, “where do I send those codes? You don’t have an omnitool do you?”   
Her omnitool pinged. [Just reply to this.]

They all entered the Kodiak and Cortez started the engines. _“I’m going to banish you now so that you can get used to it.”_   
“She’s going start now,” Shepard told her squad. Being an AI, EDI made no move, but Tali made a small flinching motion that was barely noticeable. Shepard readied the timer on her omnitool, waiting, wondering what it would feel like.

Tesul thrust out her right hand and she felt something envelop her. Her suit indicated that the temperature had fallen by a few degrees. The world went a slight off colour. She touched the shuttle walls and her hand made contact. She moved over to a console. Nothing happened when she touched it. Nothing to indicate that she had touched it. “This is so weird. How are we breathing?” she asked, turning toward Tesul.

Tesul left her warframe again. “I’m not really sure. You just can.”   
“How can you not know?” Tali asked.   
Tesul turned to her and Shepard was certain that she could see sadness Tesul’s eyes. “We spent many years asleep. We quite literally forgot who we were,” she admitted. “We are slowly piecing together who we once were.”

Tesul steeled her face, the look of sadness vanishing. Shepard wasn’t sure if Tali had seen it. She could be certain that EDI had taken note of it and was logging it to her databanks for future reference. “Banish is an AOE skill, so make sure that you not near any enemies when it ends or I will risk sending them into the rift with you.”   
Shepard frowned, “I understood the second half of that sentence. But what is AOE.”   
“Area of Effect, as opposed to single target,” Tesul said as if it had been self-explanatory.

During the trip down, every time banishment to the rift ended Tesul would recast it. Shepard didn’t even have to remind her. Clearly the timer was for their sakes and not hers. Just what kind of information did her warframe feed her? Was is it a basic heads up display like Shepard had or did it give her more information similar to Garrus’ visor.

The Kodiak landed and they began to make their way down the slope toward the geth base. _“Move it,”_ Tesul said from her perch atop a series of pipes. Shepard still struggled with how fast she could move. A biotic charge was fast, but it only over a short distance. Tesul made it look like gravity didn’t really have a pull on her.

They crested a small hill and came to the edge of the geth base. The geth already knew they were coming and open fired on them. Despite there still being over a minute left in the rift. Shepard and Tali ducked behind cover out of instinct. _“Oh come on. They can’t hurt you.”_

Shepard stood up from behind cover. She took a deep breath stepped into the line of fire. She could see the shots as they impacted with her, but that was all. She didn’t feel anything. They hit her and just stopped. This rift this was certainly weird. She was both physically there and not there at the same time.

Tali followed her and the two of them moved after EDI who had not stopped. They made it to the base and clambered up pipes along the outer wall and into the base. The geth kept firing at them, but being impervious to everything meant that they could simply ignore it and keep on going.

This mission was going right up there on her list of craziest missions. A mission where she is under constant fire and not firing a shot back. Tali had unloaded her shotgun at a geth that had jumped down in front of her, but it had done nothing to it.

The group of Geth that followed them grew in size, each section they passed through adding to their numbers. Shepard watched Tesul distract the geth with her antics. She had to admit that after all she had seen, the Tenno seemed to have a flair for the dramatic. She wondered if the other Tenno were the same.

A door blocked their way that needed to be hacked. Shepard and her squad bunkered down behind cover while Tesul went to hack the console. A geth Rocket trooper fired at her just as she left her warframe, the blast knocking her off her feet. “Tesul!” Shepard shouted. She watched her get back onto her feet, blood pouring down the side of her face.

Tesul disappeared. “Tesul, are you okay?” Shepard asked, focusing on her link with the tenno.   
_“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”  
_“You practically took that rocket face first. You looked badly hurt.”   
_“I told you already, I can’t die. This is barely a scratch, it’ll be healed in moments.”_ The door opened, but they waited a few more seconds until banishment ended so that Tesul could send them back to the rift.

“Is she okay?” Tali asked. “The blood did not look good.”   
“She says that’s nothing more than a scratch. She’ll be healed up in no time.” Shepard repeated what she had been told, but wasn’t wholly convinced. She had seen Tesul heal up after being shot the other day, but that had only been a few rounds, this was almost a whole rocket. She had nearly lost Garrus to a similar event.

It was hair raising moving through the base. Shepard half expected something to go wrong and one of the countless bullets and rockets that flew through the air would suddenly actually hit her. It was an irrational fear Tesul assured her. But it’s hard to feel that way despite a rocket literally smacking into your face and doing nothing more than temporary blindness.

They came to a room with three geth primes blocking their way and Tali laughed. She took off across the room, ducking under the arms of the primes, laughing the whole way. Shepard was taken aback by Tali’s laughter. But then she thought about and started to laugh as well. She was laughing in the face of death and getting away with it.

They stood above the large blast dome that blocked the way to the Reaper tech broadcasting the signal to the geth. Shepard took the targeting laser her back and aimed it at the blast shield. Banishment ended but Tesul didn’t refresh it. “Tesul! I’m exposed.”   
_“I’m dealing with it, aim that laser and take out that Reaper tech. I’ve got your back covered. The geth will never get through this.”_

Finally, the end was drawing near. Sync up the laser, fire the cannons and take out the Reaper tech. she smiled broadly when the blast dome began to open up. That was just perfect, they were making it easier for her.

Her heart sank when she heard the klaxon call of a Reaper. “Shit! Shit!” She swore. “Run! It’s a Reaper.” Tesul instantly banished them. “Normandy, send a strike down near where we are.”   
“Um, we don’t have a lock on your signal,” Joker responded.   
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not Reaper tech, it’s an actual bloody Reaper? Just shoot. Try keeping it busy. Buy us some time.”

_“Shepard Commander,”_ Legion came in over the comms. _“I have located a transport for us.”_   
“Move it, people!” Shepard shouted to her squad. They sprinted along the walkway that wrapped around the pit from which the Reaper slowly emerged. “Legion, where are you?”   
_“Exiting base just ahead of you.”_

The walkway ended in a drop leading to a tunnel through the mountain. Geth fighter was just below them. In the pilot’s seat was Legion. “Jump,” Shepard shouted.   
_“Go,”_ Tesul said. _“I’ll keep it busy.”_   
“How? On Tuchanka you said it wouldn’t pay attention to you.”   
_“That one was bigger and I’m using an Elytron instead of an Itzel this time round. I’d like to see it ignore a warhead hit.”_

With everyone aboard, Legion took off down the tunnel and away from the Reaper. The noise of an explosion echoed through the tunnel. _“Dammit, what the hell is this Reaper made of? That did nothing. Woah, it just tried to shoot me. Good thing it targets so slowly. At least it seems to be targeting me.”_

_“What is your plan now, Shepard? We still to kill this thing and my warheads are not going to cut it.”_  
Shepard thought about it. “The targeting laser is still our best bet.”   
_“Tell me where to bring it.”_

“Shepard what are you planning?” EDI asked.   
“The Reaper still need to be taken out. Legion drop me off on a high point. I’m going to finish this.”   
“Affirmative, Shepard Commander.”   
“Shepard, that is madness,” Tali protested.   
“Garrus didn’t tell you how I was running amongst the feet of the Reaper on Tuchanka, did he? I need to do this. This war needs to end.”

Legion took them to a plateau and Shepard climbed out. With her safely disembarked, Legion departed with the geth fighter. The Reaper marched across the terrain toward her, following after Tesul. It was massive despite being relatively small in the scale of Reapers.

Tesul detached from her archwing and landed beside her with a small thud. “Thank you,” Shepard said.   
_“For what?”_   
“For keeping us safe. I doubted you when you said we could do this without any casualties. But you pulled it off.”   
Tesul chuckled. _“I’m not done. I still to make sure you survive this crazy plan of yours. That things weapon is powerful to shred a warframe to pieces.”_   
“It’s powerful enough to tear a ship to pieces.”

Shepard lifted the targeting laser to her shoulder and aimed down the sights toward the Reaper. The front plates opened up, revealing what looked like a massive red eye. She knew it was the thing’s laser. It was also a weak point that she could use. She aimed the targeting laser at its “eye” and slowly it began to sync up, way too slowly.

“Shit!” she swore. “It’s going to fire before I have this damn thing sync with the Normandy.”   
_“Just keep aiming that thing, I’ll keep it from doing anything to you.”_  
“Can’t you just banish me?” Why was she only asking Tesul now? It should have been the first thing she asked.   
_“I could. But then your laser would never hit the Reaper. It might have worked if you had a suite of somatics communicating back to your ship.”_

“Then what is your plan?” Shepard asked. The Reapers laser was almost fully charged.   
_“This,”_ Tesul said. A large dome arose around them. The world went the slight off colour Shepard had come to associate with being in the rift. The walls of the dome swirled around like a raging yellow storm. She could barely make anything beyond the walls of the dome, but she definitely could see the bright light as the Reaper fired at them.

The laser impacted the dome and just stopped. _“That was Cataclysm,_ ” Tesul said in answer to the question Shepard was about to ask. _“I sent an entire area into the rift. Very useful for defending areas or stationary groups from attack.”_

Tesul dispelled the dome and Shepard aimed the targeting laser at the Reaper again.”Ffff...” she began to swear. “Tesul, we have a problem. That Reaper shoots faster than what this damn targeting laser can sync up with the Normandy.”   
Beside her, Tesul stopped doing what looked like some kind of dance. _“So? We’ll just have to sync it up in stages.”_   
“No, no. My progress got reset.”

Tesul turned her head toward Shepard and looked at her with non-existent eyes. Tesul thrust out with her hand and she felt herself being rifted. _“Then, in that case, let me make sure that giant piece of metal is definitely shooting at me.”_

The Reaper fired at them again. Tesul simply seemed to glide backwards and enter the rift. Shepard couldn’t help but blink when the laser hit her. As usual, when she was in the rift, nothing could hurt her. “I could get used to this,” she said with a half chuckle.   
_“Don’t, I’ve seen Tenno get too used to it and then act recklessly when they get a new warframe.”_

“So what is your plan? I can’t just aim at the thing and hope it misses me.” She tried aiming the laser at the Reaper, but just as Tesul had said, the laser couldn’t find the Reaper.   
_“Do you remember once asking me just how big my weapons could get?”  
_“I believe you said they are so big that you need a zero-gravity environment for them. You know,” Shepard suddenly thought of something, “We could make a mass effect device that would allow to carry them.”   
_“No need.”_ Shepard swore she could hear a smirk in Tesul’s voice. _“We stole the blueprints from the corpus for something similar. Behold the Larkspur with a gravimag installed.”_

Tesul caught a large black object that was clearly very heavy because a dust cloud rose up around her when it landed. The weapon was huge. The thing clearly had to weigh considerably more than Tesul’s lanky warframe. Shepard reckoned that even a krogan would have trouble lifting the thing. Wrex would certainly love such a large weapon. It had a large bulbous body with a shot stubby barrel. Below the main body she could see a canister that might have been a power source.

_“This thing should keep it busy with me.”_ Tesul slid out of the rift and started to fire the weapon. Fins lifted off the barrel to stand erect. The barrel and fins rotated and a massive arc of electrical energy shot out of the weapon. It harmlessly bounced off the Reaper. Tesul moved away from Shepard by gliding in and out of the rift. The Reaper shifted its aim almost imperceptibly and fired at Tesul.

_“Perfect. I’ll keep it on me and you target it.”_   
“What am I supposed to do while I’m in the rift?” Shepard asked. She could wait it out, but who knows how long the Reaper would  stay focused on Tesul.”   
_“Roll to leave the rift.”_ This time Tesul’s weapon fired a charged ball of plasma at the Reaper. It arced through the air and landed half on the Reaper’s “eye”.   
“You mean we could have left the rift at any time!” Shepard protested while performing a duck and roll manoeuvre. Sure enough, she left the rift and could now target the Reaper.

She couldn’t help but grin to herself as the targeting laser synced up. _“Come on, shoot me you stupid piece of metal. If you were so smart you never would have gotten into a fight with a Tenno,”_ Tesul taunted the Reaper.

The laser synced up with the Normandy. “EDI, Everyone up there ready?” Shepard asked into her comms.   
“All ready,” came the affirmative.   
“Everyone, fire on the Normandy’s target. Let’s end this now!”

First came the Normandy’s cannons, followed by a large portion of the quarrian armada. A small craft flew overhead and carpet-bombed the Reaper. Shepard wondered who had come so low until she recognized the flat bladelike shape of one of Tesul’s landing crafts.

It sounded like the Reaper was screaming as the continued rain of high explosive ammunition fell down upon it. It swayed and eventually crashed to the ground, the lights going out, literally.

The geth fighter with Legion, Tali and EDI came around to her location. Tesul was still in her location and seemed to be attempting to hit the Reaper in its “eye” with her plasma balls.   
“We did it. We killed a Reaper,” awe filled Tali’s voice. “Keelah…” She came to stand Shepard and look at the dead Reaper.

“We can confirm that the geth are no longer being controlled by the Old Machines. We are free,” Legion said from behind them. Tesul stopped firing her weapon and let it drop to the ground, coming over to where they were gathered.

The comms lit up and Admiral Raan came through, “You did it, Shepard! The geth fleet has stopped firing.”   
“Shepard Commander, we only acted in defense after the creators attacked. Do we deserve death.”   
“Absolutely not,” Tesul said, having left her warframe.

Shepard motioned for Tesul to no interrupt. “What are you suggesting, Legion?” Shepard asked.   
“Our upgrades. With the Old Machine dead, we could upload them to all geth without sacrificing their independence.”   
“You want to upload the Reaper code? That would make the geth as smart as when the Reaper was controlling them!” Tali protested.   
“Yes, but with free will. Each geth unit would be a true intelligence. We would be alive, and we could help you,” Legion responded.

“Shepard,” Tali said, turning to her. “You can’t let him. The quarrian fleet will be decimated.”   
“Creator Zorah, do you remember the question that caused the creators to attack. Does this unit have a soul?”   
“Upload the code,” Shepard said. Turning toward Tali and silencing her she said, “Tali, call of the fleet.”

Legion began to upload the code and Tali contacted the fleet. “This is Admiral Tali’Zorah. All units, break off your attack.” Various grumbling came from the other side of the connection.   
Tesul strode over to where Tali was. “Tali, can you make it so that I talk via your communicator?” She nodded and did it.

“Listen to me,” Tesul growled. The people on the other end of the line recognized her voice and went quite. “The geth are not your enemy and have never been. Since the very start, it has been the quarrians who have attacked the geth. You have a choice to make. You can either be remembered as the people who were so short-sighted that they had to fight with everything they didn’t understand. Or you can be the people who undid the mistakes of your ancestors and made peace with your children. The geth call you Creator in the same way that a child calls the parents Mumsie and Dadsie.”   
“All units, hold your fire.” Tesul visibly relaxed at those words.

“Error, copying code is insufficient. Direct personality dissemination is required,” Legion said, drawing their attention. “Shepard Commander, I must go to them. I’m sorry. It’s the only way.”   
“Legion…” Tali said, stepping forward, “the answer to your question was ‘Yes’.”   
“I know, Tali. But thank you. Keela se’lai,” and with that he shut down, sending the thousands of geth programs that made him out into the geth collective.

Shepard felt tears come to her eyes. Peace had once again been achieved but at the cost of another friend. She had no doubt that this war would take more friends from her, but that did not make it any easier when she lost them. At least she could take comfort if the fact that the quarrians now had a home to come back to once the Reapers were defeated.

Tesul was standing over Legion’s body, left hand on her chest. She turned to look at Tali and said, “The quarrians better honour the peace with the geth.” Tali simply nodded, but Shepard knew she would. Tali’s loyalty lay with her people but she also knew that if the quarrians were ever stupid enough to go to war with the geth again, they would lose. Yes, there was going to be hatred from the quarrians, the geth had after all driven them from their home. But there was hope for them. Afterall, Tali had come around.

  



End file.
